afrol News, 13 March - Angola's Finance Minister José Pedro de Morais has told the local representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that his country is no longer in need of the Fund's services, including its monitoring of the economy. The announcement comes as Angola booms stronger than any other African country and doubling oil exports give the Luanda government greater self-confidence.

Minister Morais in a letter to the chief of the IMF's Luanda offices, Sangeev Gupta, cancelled its consultations with the Fund. This means that the IMF will no longer be monitoring the Angolan economy and stop giving advice on economic reforms. This further will affect Angola's arrangements with other financial institutions and donors, who mostly demand economic transparency and the implementation of benchmarks defined by the IMF.

According to the 'Journal de Angola', Minister Morais' letter said that following further IMF guidelines and programmes "will not help Angola to preserve the economic and social stability it has gained so far." The letter added that the government felt it was successful on its own when it came to establishing macroeconomic stability and deplored the "restrictive conditions" given by the IMF.

Minister Morais further pointed to the impressive economic results his government could point to during the last few years, noting that "Angola's economy has grown, in real terms, by 13 percent per year, while inflation has fallen dramatically." He thus saw no need for further support and conditions from the Fund.

Indeed, Angola has experienced a veritable economic boom during the last years, with all indicators showing that the boom will continue. Oil production is in the process of doubling from its 2005 numbers and also the country's non-oil economy is showing robust growth.

These economic successes have considerably raised self-consciousness in Luanda since the civil war ended in 2002. Despite irritating its main customer, the USA, Angola late last year joined the oil producers' cartel OPEC. Repeated calls for increased transparency in the oil sector, which were positively answered up till early last year, are now left unanswered. Last month, authorities even arrested a British anti-corruption activist accusing her of spying.

The rupture with the IMF thus may seem as a logical step in a process of freeing the economy from foreign pressure. Key demands by the IMF have always been increasing transparency regarding the country's skyrocketing oil revenues and a strengthening of the anti-graft policy.

Luanda authorities are slowly aiming at becoming an economic power to be taken seriously. During and shortly after the civil war, Angola remained at the mercy of donors and foreign powers, which were not modest in forwarding policy demands. This has left a scar on the pride of most Angolans, who welcome the government's nationalist policies and regional power aims.

But these policies may be a double-edged sword for Angolans. The country still has made little democratic progress, corruption is known to be widespread even political circles and the population has little information on how oil revenues are spent. While the economy is booming, a large majority of Angolans still live in utmost poverty.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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