Africa
Expensive Angola
Hot on Dubai's heels
Feb 9th 2011, 17:29 by O.A. | LUANDA
THE Angolan government this week said it sees Luanda, the capital, as a "new Dubai" and there certainly are similarities with the emirate. Luanda has access to vast oil wealth. If only they could get visas, tourists would love the beaches and game parks. Flight routes have been improving following the opening of a modern airport; planes arrive non-stop from Europe and America, mostly carrying oil engineers. Ryanair, the low-cost carrier, has looked into the route from London.
Then there are Luanda’s new skyscrapers. Oil money has swept into local banks and quickly seeped into the construction sector (even though the country much more desperately needs farm loans to boost agriculture). Half a dozen more luxury hotels are under construction along the Marginal, the waterfront promenade, adding to the spiky shadows over the marina on the sandy Ilha peninsula where a $5.5m 110-ft Ferretti lords it over the other super-yachts.
If only that were enough. Dubai’s rise may have started with oil but it has long since run out and the emirate now relies on banking, tourism and foreign investment, sectors where Luanda, and Angola in general, do poorly. Few banks give the appearance of commercial savvy or probity. One critic refers to them as "Laundromats". The American government recently froze the accounts of the Angolan embassy in Washington over irregularities.
Suspicion runs both ways. In formerly Marxist Luanda, foreigners from capitalist countries are not warmly welcomed. It is nigh impossible to get a visa unless one has a powerful sponsor or some other in. Those who make it past the airport face additional hurdles. It takes 56 steps to set up a business if you are Angolan, and foreigners must jump through even more (even tighter) hoops.
Baobab was walking along a seafront road between the presidential palace and the national police command this week when an armed policeman approached and asked to see my passport. Two Japanese were caught in the same drag net. We explained—using primitive sign language--that we were not carrying our passports and in any case did not speak Portuguese. The copper became increasingly irate. He spoke no English except for "mani, mani" (try saying it out loud). His less-than subtle demands for a backhander eventually led him to write $10 into the sand with a stick. We continued to insist that we didn’t understand. He stammered, "Angola… policia… bandidos." We smiled broadly and repeated, "No Portuguese". The policeman shook his head—presumably at how thick the world outside Angola must be—and let us go.
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Readers' comments
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luso_star,
its not okay for civil servants to take bribes. If that were done in my home country of Ethiopia I would report that officer immediately.
prestwick-uk,
you sound like every other sour grapes white person. There is not greater exploiter than Europeans and Americans. None. China is at least building necessary infrastructure. also, do you think its a coincidence that after years and years of Western involvement African economies were depressed. Yet, after one decade of China's involvement, things are on the up an up.
I many of my fellow Africans endlesly whine about how colonialism destroyed Africa and blame all our problems on colonialism instead of accepting that most of our problems are due to our incompetence, tribalism and awful governance.
Angola is an exception. This country was indeed destroyed and its people mass murdered by the West who tried to smother it to death at birth. The West led by Reagan and Thatcher and in cahoots with apartheid South Africa formed, armed, funded and trained two of the most vicious mercenary guerilla movements the World has ever known
They kept killing, maiming and raping till ten years ago. It is only by the grace of god ably assisted by Fidel Castro and with the courage of its people under the MPLA leadership that Angola survived at all. Western populations did not lift a finger to oppose the evil being perpetrated by their governments; unlike for example they did for Viet Nam.
So I am surprised they allow any westerners in at all or not lynch those who slip in. So keep quite Baobab and count yourself lucky.
Disappointed you didn't say "Luandromats"
@Luso_star: Because if he didn't write about it nobody would know and then it'd never stop (eventually). Things stop when people find out about it and demand change. Someone's alcohol problem or a bullying problem at work only continues because it is hidden away from public view. In fact, to turn your question around, why shouldn't he write about corruption and in fact shouldn't he write about corruption elsewhere as well?!
Krawoo: Would you agree that Chinese businesses are part of those ruthless multinationals? China: The new neo-colonial operators in Africa that the world refuses to talk about.
Why should he not demand his own portion of the booty, that would eventually end up being accumulated undeservingly by the greedy political elite? And he must do so especially from those he sees as agents of the ruthlessly exploitative mining multinationals whose sole interest in Angola and the rest of Africa is to expropriate the peoples' commonwealth leaving in their wake massive environmental disasters.
Why is this even an article?
I travel a lot, but not that much. The same happened to me in Slovakia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Brazil and Malaysia. Why would you expect anything else in Angola? If you were a police officer in Angola and had the oportunity to feed your family by extorquing some money from tourists with no risk at all, wouldn´t you do it? Yeah probably you would!
Suggestion: stop writing about fait divers, that are not that divers.
Given the many languages in India, methinks it could well work here. Thanks for the idea.