Courtesy: RFI
Angolan President Joao Lourenco on Monday sacked the armed forces’ chief of staff and the head of the foreign intelligence, the latest moves in his quest to rid the country of officials tainted by graft accusations or have links to his predecessor, Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
Lourenco succeeded dos Santos in September 2017, pledging to tackle an endemic culture of corruption and to bring economic reforms to the southern African nation.
Angola is Africa’s second biggest producer of crude oil, but is marred by widespread poverty despite its vast oil wealth.
Before his sacking, the head of the armed forces General Geraldo Sachipengo Nunda was last month named by prosecutors as a suspect in an investigation of a scheme to negotiate a fraudulent international credit line of US$ 50 billion.
The other, André de Oliveira Sango, a long-time dos Santos loyalist, was made foreign intelligence chief over a decade ago.
Their sackings were announced in a presidential decree broadcast on the national public radio station. Neither of them has responded to the dismissals.
