Luanda - Angolan minister of Finance Vera Daves de Sousa on Sunday in Lisbon, Portugal, reiterated that the agreement signed recently in Washington with the World Bank provides funding for several municipalities in the country, through presentation of good compliance rates with the assisted programmes.
In an interview broadcast by RTP Africa, the Angolan minister said that the agreement with the World Bank to fund municipalities "is the way forward for the institutionalisation of municipal elections ," serving to boost the capacity to carry out territorial and urban planning and manage their own finances in the target local elections.
According to the minister, as the municipalities progress in their capacity to manage their finances and territorial management, they gain access to funding from the World Bank.
Daves de Sousa said that the programme will initially caver the municipalities of Lubango (Huíla), Cabinda, Benguela, Huambo and others, due to their population density.
She noted that tax revenues were essential for funding development, but with an increasing contribution of the non-oil sector and a consequent drop in the weight of oil.
Although the 51 percent contribution from tax revenue, mainly oil, is still high, the minister of Finance said it was important to remember that a few years ago the weight of oil was more than 75 percent and at the moment it stands at 60/40.
On the Government's growth forecasts (3.3 percent), which are more conservative than those of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which are 3.5 percent, Daves de Sousa admitted that they are the best way in the Government's view, although they are not very far from each other.
As for debt over Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and IMF projections of 63.3 percent in 2023 and 59.2 percent in 2024, the Angolan Finance minister clarified that the government's projections are to reach 60 percent debt over GDP in 2024, which is the reference of the programme adopted and with technical assistance from the IMF.
"Our reference framework is the Fiscal Sustainability Law, with a set of goals, which was prepared with the technical assistance of the IMF, during the period of the programme with the IMF. The programme foresees to reach 60 percent debt-to-GDP ratio," she said.
According to the minister, the Angolan government will do its best to reduce the ratio via growth of GDP and by contracting new funding, as conservatively as possible.
"We want tax revenues to contribute increasingly to financing activities," she concluded.
