Africa Oil & Gas: Angola’s Sonangol Group to lose some of its subsidiary companies

Some Angolan public companies operating in the oil and gas sector will be included in the country’s ongoing privatisation process, the Angolan president said in an interview with French newspaper L’Opinion.

“It will involve some subsidiaries of Sonangol (Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola),” said João Lourenço, without specifying which companies in the national oil sector will be affected, according to Angolan newspaper Novo Jornal.

The Head of State also gave assurances in the interview that the companies that will pass from the State to private entities will be sold through a transparent process that will not favour any entity.

Last February Lourenço created the Commission for Preparation of the Implementation of the Privatisation Process in Reference Companies, which was charged with presenting the programme to be executed by the government in this area, to increase efficiency and reduce the costs of the state sector.

Last April Jornal de Angola reported that the list of Angolan public companies to be privatised should be announced shortly, as the deadline given to a commission coordinated by the Minister of State for Economic and Social Development, Manuel Nunes Júnior has ended.

The privatisation of public enterprises that, in practice, are a “dead weight for the State,” was one of the priorities of governance outlined by the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, with the Head of State reiterated that the companies the State planned to dispose of should be studied “on a case-by-case basis.” source: Macauhub