Manuel Vicente claims that it was the Luso-Angolan businessman H\u00e9lder Bataglia who opened the doors of China to Angola, facilitating contact with the Chinese businessman Sam Pa, in a mission guided by Jos\u00e9 Eduardo dos Santos.<\/p>\n
The statements, made by Manuel Vicente on August 6 and November 5, 2020, were read in court on Tuesday (July 8) at the Supreme Court, where the trial of Generals Manuel H\u00e9lder Vieira Dias J\u00fanior \u201cKopelipa\u201d and Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento \u201cDino\u201d has been taking place since March 10. They are accused of defrauding the Angolan state of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
Also on trial are businessmen Yiu Haiming, Fernando Gomes, and the companies Plansmart International Limited, Utter Right International Limited, and China International Fund (CIF).<\/p>\n
At the time of the events, Manuel Vicente was Chairman of the Board of Sonangol E.P. and coordinator of Angola\u2013China cooperation relations.<\/p>\n
Guidance from Jos\u00e9 Eduardo dos Santos<\/strong><\/p>\n According to Vicente, he traveled to China several times under the guidance of Jos\u00e9 Eduardo dos Santos to negotiate financing and investments.<\/p>\n The first amount secured was two billion U.S. dollars (1.6 billion euros), signed at the end of 2003, accompanied at the time by Finance Minister Jos\u00e9 Pedro de Morais and the Governor of the National Bank of Angola, Amadeu Maur\u00edcio.<\/p>\n \u201cH\u00e9lder Bataglia was the one who informed Jos\u00e9 Eduardo dos Santos that he knew a Chinese businessman interested in investing in Angola,\u201d revealed the former president of the state oil company.<\/p>\n The Luso-Angolan businessman H\u00e9lder Bataglia was one of the founders and president of Escom (Esp\u00edrito Santo Com\u00e9rcio), the international arm of the Esp\u00edrito Santo Group (GES) for Africa. His name appeared in several investigations related to the collapse of GES and power networks in Angola, although he has always denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Manuel Vicente also stated that he was one of the founders of the company China Sonangol, headquartered in Hong Kong, comprised of three shareholders: Sonangol E.P. with 30% of the shares, and Chinese businessmen Sam Pa and Madame Lo Fong with 70%.<\/p>\n In Angola, the company only had a representative office, and Vicente served as non-executive Chairman of the Board, with the Chinese partners handling executive roles.<\/p>\n Relationship with China Sonangol<\/strong><\/p>\n The former executive stated that China Sonangol and Sonangol E.P. were \u201ccompletely distinct\u201d entities, with no daily operational ties, but the state oil company sold oil to China Sonangol in order to \u201cmaintain Angola\u2019s relationship with China\u201d and \u201cavoid selling oil to a single Chinese entity.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that China Sonangol was part of Block 3, operated by Sonangol Pesquisa & Produ\u00e7\u00e3o, maintaining \u201ca normal business relationship between companies.\u201d<\/p>\n China Sonangol was created in 2004 as a joint venture between Angola\u2019s state-owned Sonangol and Chinese partners represented by the private firm 88 Queensway Group, led by Sam Pa and Lo Fong Hung.<\/p>\n Headquartered in Hong Kong, it became a key channel for Angola\u2013China cooperation after the civil war, funneling bilateral financing and infrastructure investments in exchange for Angolan oil, among other controversial operations.<\/p>\n Confronted with allegations that Sonangol E.P. had financed China Sonangol with $200 million in 2005 and $250 million in 2009, Manuel Vicente denied it, stating these were \u201ccapital contributions\u201d \u2014 equity payments made by the Angolan state-owned shareholder.<\/p>\n \u201cThese were Sonangol E.P. cash funds, and if they weren\u2019t reimbursed, then they needed to be recovered,\u201d he said, emphasizing the need to assess \u201cthe investment maturity period to determine the return timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKopelipa\u201d and \u201cDino\u201d Are Not Shareholders of CIF Angola<\/strong><\/p>\n According to Manuel Vicente, China Sonangol, as a client of Sonangol E.P., received 27 oil shipments between 2004 and 2006, valued at over $1.5 billion, all of which were fully paid for: \u201cIt is not possible for China Sonangol to receive oil and not pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n In the 34-page statement read in court today, Manuel Vicente declared that neither \u201cKopelipa\u201d nor \u201cDino\u201d are shareholders of CIF Angola, clarifying that General Dino was only brought in to assist with the company\u2019s restructuring, under the guidance of Jos\u00e9 Eduardo dos Santos.<\/p>\n He also rejected claims that CIF had received oil payments from Sonangol, calling it \u201cimpossible to use this mechanism to market this product.\u201d<\/p>\n The defendants face charges of embezzlement, fraud, forgery, criminal association, abuse of power, money laundering, and influence peddling.<\/p>\n According to the prosecution, the targeted companies were allegedly used to set up a scheme around a financing agreement between Angola and China, aimed at national reconstruction after the civil war, involving the China International Fund, its subsidiaries, and Sonangol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Manuel Vicente claims that it was the Luso-Angolan businessman H\u00e9lder Bataglia who opened the doors of China to Angola, facilitating contact with the Chinese businessman Sam Pa, in a mission guided by Jos\u00e9 Eduardo dos Santos. The statements, made by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,78,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-featured","category-others"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9268,"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9267\/revisions\/9268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.negociosdeangola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}