Angolan parliament approves general administrative division under UNITA ‘leadership’

The Angolan Parliament approved this Wednesday the overall administrative division of the provinces of Cuando Cubango, Moxico and Luanda, receiving positive votes from the MPLA, as a result of which the country was divided into 21 provinces. The initiative “failed” on the part of UNITA (the opposition), which called it “already autonomous”.

The proposed Law of Administrative-Political Separation (DPA) of Angola, an initiative of Angolan President João Lourenço, was the last and universal vote this Wednesday during the eighth extraordinary plenary session of the National Assembly, with the People’s Assembly voting only for it. The Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, in power).

With the approval of the DPA law, Angola will now have 21 provinces, up from the current 18, an initiative that is being vigorously contested by the opposition, especially with the addition, specifically, of the division of the province of Luanda.

Three new provinces, namely Cuando, which resulted from the division of Cuando-Cubango, Kassai Zambeze, which resulted from the division of the province of Moxico, and Ikolo and Bengo, which resulted from the division of the province of Luanda, bring the country to 326 municipalities and 378 communes.

According to its report based on the DPA law, the initiative aims, on the one hand, to promote the balanced development of the territory, bring public services closer to citizens and guarantee the full occupation of the territory, and on the other, to rationalise the management of public services of the state, increasing its efficiency, effectiveness and fairness.

The MPLA’s positive vote was justified by its deputy, Mário Pinto de Andrade, who said the diploma was “in complete harmony” with the MPLA government’s programme and the National Development Plan (PND) for 2023-2027.

“We voted in favor because we believe that the population’s problems (water, energy, housing and road) will be resolved more quickly by public utilities and municipal administrations,” the MPLA deputy emphasized.

The declaration to vote against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA, the largest opposition party) was presented by MP Américo Chivukuvuku, who believes that the objectives and principles proclaimed in the law “will not be achieved”.

“The paradigms and culture of centralized control are the same paradigms that have, for many years, produced multidimensional poverty, hunger, unemployment, high cost of living, corruption, waste and, in short, failure to bring services closer to the people,” he argued.

This announcement of the vote was followed by shouts and slogans from UNITA parliamentary group deputies, who shouted in unison “local authorities now” and “the people want local authorities”.

The Humanist Party of Angola (PHA), the Social Renewal Party (PRS) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), which are in opposition, abstained, agreeing that the administrative division of the country should not respond to the country’s priority problems.

“We consider this division untimely because we understand that the country has urgent priorities in the fight against poverty,” said MP Florbela Malaquias of the PHA.

In a statement, MP Rui Malopa Miguel (PRS) questioned the inclusion of the partition of the Angolan capital in the DPA proposal, noting that Luanda has historical, cultural and economic constraints that he assumed he did not know if they had been taken into account in the process.

Minister of State and head of the Civil Chamber of the President of Angola, Adan de Almeida, previously assured that Angola’s new DPA should come into force in 2025, and that the General State Budget (OGE) for this year, which should be approved at the end of 2024, should already have funds for 21 provinces.