MPLA loses ‘millions of dollars’ as deputies cut in Angolan parliament

The MPLA, which is in power in Angola, has lost “millions of dollars” from the state budget by reducing the number of deputies in parliament after the 2022 elections, the party leader said on Tuesday, fearing the same scenario in local government.

According to Jobe Capapigna, leader of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, in power since 1975), quoted by the Emissora Católica de Angola, the “comrades” party that elected 124 deputies in 2022, currently has a small budget. .

“How many deputies did we lose in the 2022 elections? UNITA has 90, we have 124 deputies, you know how many millions of dollars the party lost from the OGE [Orçamento Geral do Estado]? The party’s budget pie has shrunk because of this loss of parliamentary seats, so the party’s budget is low,” he said at the opening of the MPLA Audit and Disciplinary Commission seminar in Cuanza Sul.

“Our needs have also decreased because we receive less from the EGE,” said Job Capapinha, also governor of Cuanza Sul.

The MPLA elected 124 deputies in the 24 August 2022 general election, down 26 deputies from the 2017 elections, while UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, opposition) almost doubled this number by electing 90 deputies for 2022-2027 gg. Legislature.

For Capapinha, who is also the MPLA’s provincial secretary in the Angolan province of Sul Cuanza, the constituency where UNITA elected a deputy, the scenario of a reduction in the number of deputies could also be realized in the municipal elections, if “the comrades are sleeping.” “.

“And so, sequentially, it will happen [redução de deputados] with the municipalities if we are also “ngonhar” (local slang meaning sleeper or distracted) and leave the municipalities to them [oposição] beware, during the accounts we will see that it cost us nothing,” he warned.

Capapinha also believed that UNITA wanted a “quick hold” of municipal elections in Angola in order to participate in the 2022 elections of the people to whom it “has committed itself, both at home and abroad.”

“The problem is not in the municipalities, they will be, this is a constitutional order, we will comply, but this is not what worries our people at the moment, what worries our people at the moment, these are the basic conditions for life or without municipalities,” he noted.

“Now, millions and millions that he is going to spend on local authorities, he is still building fields, opening fields and going to see if people are not living well, they are living. [eleições autárquicas]but let’s calm down and this information that we have to pass on to the militants, all these difficulties that we are facing, many are far-fetched,” he shot.

No date has yet been set for the first municipal elections in Angola, and UNITA is advocating for them to be held in 2023.

The Law on the Implementation of Local Governments is the only legal document in the package of municipal legislation that has not yet been approved by the Parliament of Angola.