LUANDA, June 3 (Reuters) – Angolan
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has appointed his billionaire businesswoman
daughter Isabel as head of state energy firm Sonangol in a shake-up that
cements his dynastic grip on power in a major African oil exporter.
Isabel, ranked
as Africa’s richest woman by Forbes, would become chief executive after the
firing of Sonangol’s board, a presidential decree carried on Angolan state
media said.
Angola,
currently Africa’s top oil producer because of supply outages caused by
militant attacks in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, said in April it would restructure
Sonangol to increase efficiency and profitability.
Putting the
43-year-old in charge could mean dos Santos is serious about reforms, but it
could also be seen as Angola’s leader of the last 36 years laying the ground
for his family to control the central pillar of the economy when he leaves
office.
Oil sales
account for more than 90 percent of Angola’s foreign exchange earnings, making
Sonangol by far the biggest source of dollars and state funding.
The president’s
son, Jose Filomeno, is chief executive of Angola’s sovereign wealth fund.
“Sonangol was
always regarded as one of the more effective African national oil companies,
but governance has slipped quite considerably over the past decade through
issues where political factors played no small part,” independent
Africa-focused energy analyst Antony Goldman said.
“She’s not an
engineer or necessarily an energy expert but she is someone with a track record
of getting deals done.”
London-educated
Isabel, who denies any political ambitions and says she started her business
career as a six-year-old selling eggs, has been a major investor in the
domestic and Portuguese telecoms, banking and petroleum sectors.
“The case can
certainly be made that this is a political move whereby the president is
strengthening his grip,” Cobus de Hart, an Angola analyst at NKC African
Economics in Cape Town, said.
“But the news
that global consulting firms will be assisting with the reform strategy is at
least a step in the right direction.”
COMPLIANCE
HURDLES
One senior
Johannesburg-based banker said the appointment could make it more difficult for
international banks to do business with Sonangol, given the perception of
nepotism it creates.
“From a
compliance point of view, it’s going to make it harder,” the banker said.
Sonangol said in
February that debt owed to foreign oil companies had soared and it expected a
very difficult year.
The OPEC member
imports around 6 million cubic metres of refined products a year, according to
national statistics.
Dos Santos, one
of Africa’s longest-serving rulers after coming to power in 1979, said in March
he intended to step down as president in 2018 but gave no reason for his
decision and did not name a preferred successor.
His mild,
inscrutable public demeanour belies his tight control of the former Portuguese
colony, where he has overseen an oil-backed economic and construction boom to
rebuild a country devastated by a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.
Critics accuse
the 73-year-old of mismanaging Angola’s oil wealth and making an elite, mainly
his family and political allies, vastly rich in a country ranked amongst the
world’s most corrupt.
Dos Santos, who
rarely appears in public or gives interviews, said in 2009 his administration
had a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to graft.
(Additional reporting
by Ed Cropley and Joe Brock; Writing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Ed Cropley;
Editing by Alexander Smith)
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