Africa’s richest woman to return more than $ 500 million to Angola

Accused of corruption, Isabel dos Santos will have to return 422 million euros (502 million dollars) to the Angolan oil company Sonangol, another setback for the richest woman in Africa and daughter of the former president of this country, José Eduardo dos Santos.

According to the Dutch arbitration institute NAI, which is part of the International Court of Arbitration, the operation by which Isabel dos Santos acquired an indirect 6% stake in the Portuguese oil and gas group Galp Energia in 2006 by the intermediary of a Dutch company is “null and invalid”.

As a result, he must return his shares, worth € 422 million. to the public limited company Sonangol, and therefore Angola, confirms the arbitration decision dated July 23 and obtained Friday by the AFP agency.

The transaction, through the holding company Exem Energy, which belonged to Dos Santos’ husband, was carried out under “non-economic conditions” and “non-market” pricesrecalls the binding decision, which mentions “kleptocratic operations” by which Isabel dos Santos and her husband have enriched themselves with state property.

Isabel dos Santos paid a 15% advance from a company in the Virgin Islands.

In 2016, when she became CEO of Sonangol, she paid the balance of the purchase price of her indirect stake in Galp by first, an Angolan currency worthless outside the countryInstead of doing it in euros as decided in the contract, specify the NAI.

Exem lawyers contest “the decision taken by the panel of three arbitrators which decided that only the accusations presented by Sonangol were sufficient and did not rule on the evidence and documents presented” by the defense, have- they explained to AFP from Lisbon.

“Politics clearly trumps legal analysis,” they say. They add that they will appeal.

Accusations that pile up

Isabel dos Santos, 48, nicknamed the princess, denies committing a crime. Angolan justice accuses him of corruption and is under investigation in Portugal, former colonial power.

It is also involved in luanda papers, an investigation carried out by a consortium of 120 journalists based on the leak of 715,000 documents, the conclusions of which left the couple in difficulty.

Isabel dos Santos was married to Congolese businessman Sindika Dokolo, who died in October in a diving accident.

Galp’s stake represents a small part of Dos Santos’ significant investments in Angola and Portugal.

According to the American magazine Forbes, the same one who named her in 2013 “Africa’s first female billionaire”These investments are estimated at around 3,000 million dollars (2,500 million euros).

The coming to power in Angola of Joao Lourenço in 2017 marked the decline of the Dos Santos couple, friends of trips to the French beaches of St-Tropez and palaces in London.

In December 2019, Angolan justice froze their assets and accused the married couple of illicit enrichment and money laundering.

As proof, he cited the embezzlement of more than $ 1 billion public oil and diamond groups, in a country where a third of the population lives below the poverty line.

Besides Sonangol, Isabel dos Santos has invested in telephony, diamond mines, banking and the real estate sector, in her country and in Portugal.

Before leaving the presidency in 2017, her father appointed her as head of Sonangol and the current head of state sacked her in 2018.

Photo: AFP