Luanda – At least 300,000 households have benefited, since 2020, from the "Kwenda" cash transfer programme, which has improved the social living conditions of the populations.
This is one of the main challenges facing the Angolan government in the last five years, as part of the actions aimed at improving the social conditions of the most vulnerable communities in the country.
Under the programme, 536,333 families were registered to benefit from direct monetary transfers, totaling Kz 11. 9 billion.
Joining the programme are also families assisted with basic food baskets throughout the country, the adjustment and generalised salary increase in the civil service.
Despite the setbacks caused by various phenomena such as the global economic and financial crisis and Covid-19, the cost of living for the population has seen visible improvements in the last two years.
The Executive bet on the implementation of reforms with a view to the recovery and ensure economy stability, investing in infrastructures in the sectors of agriculture, health, education, energy and water, transport, public works and spatial planning.
The challenges of the last five years have also focused on the telecommunications and information technology sectors, on the fight against poverty and on the promotion of employment.
The agenda of the great challenges of the five-year government also included improving the perception and image of the country abroad, improving the political and economic point of view, but also the functioning of institutions.
The adversities that shook the international situation, including the great financial crisis of 2014 that lasted in the following years, also left very strong marks on the Angolan economy and its social fabric.
The data show that, a year before, 2016, the current government started its functions, inflation reached around 42%, with the prices of products, including the basic food basket, and of essential goods and services increasing exorbitantly. , leaving most workers, especially those in the civil service, without purchasing power.
In order to reverse the situation, the Executive had to bet on better coordination between monetary and fiscal policy, on more discipline and quality in the use of public funds, more and greater integration between sectors and decision-making based on results, as well as in the increase in domestic production, with stress to agricultural production: bananas, cassava and sweet potatoes, vegetables, tomatoes, onions, beans and corn.
Inflation, which even before the Covid-19 outbreak was being controlled in Angola, gains “wings” and jumps from 17% to 22.4% in 2020, and then rises further to 27.03% in 2021.
With the effects of Covid-19, the Executive implemented a new integrated strategy with short, medium and long term objectives, supported by new reforms in the light of the Macroeconomic Stabilization Programme, recovery of the economy, the appreciation of the Kwanza, the improvement and rigour in public expenditure, the increase in the collection of tax revenue from the oil sector, as well as the adjustment and salary increase in the civil service.
This strategy made it possible, in part, with the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce pressure on families' pockets and increase, diversity and regularity in access to goods and services.
Investments in the real economy, finance, health, education, agriculture, energy and water, telecommunications and media and transport sectors, between 2018 and 2021, allowed not only diversification, but also a generalized reduction of the prices of goods and services.
The end of 2021 is marked by the launch of the Strategic Food Reserve, allowing the transition to normalisation and stabilisation of food prices in the basic basket in the formal and even informal market.
With the programme in question, the prices of basic food products saw a reduction not only due to the launch of the Strategic Reserve, but also because of the exemption from paying taxes for these essential foods and the promotion of local industrial and agricultural production.
