Diamond exploration licenses previously owned by Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, have been taken from her and are now on offer to new investors.
According to a report by Reuters, the president of state diamond company Endiama, José Manuel Ganga Júnior, told a group of investors during a closed door meeting at a mining conference in Cape Town last month that the licenses have expired and are now available for new exploration partners as the government does not have any commitment with any former owners of these projects.
The licenses previously owned by dos Santos are the Camafuca-Camazambo and Chiri licenses located in the northeastern diamond producing provinces of Lunda Note. Angola is one of the largest diamond producers in the world, but a lot of its mining territory remains unexploited due to decades of civil war and a closed, difficult business environment since fighting ended in 2002.
In a related development, Angolan reportedly prosecutors opened an investigation on Friday into possible corruption at the country’s state oil giant, Sonangol, when it was run by Isabel dos Santos. The investigators are probing irregular financial transfers during dos Santos’ tenure reported by Sonangol’s new management including a transaction were a former finance director ordered the transfer of $38 million to a company in Dubai. Banco BIC, a bank in which dos Santos is a director and significant shareholder, executed the transfer. The billionaire has since used her Twitter account to deny any financial impropriety. A spokesperson for dos Santos did not respond to an email request for comment.
Isabel dos Santos, 44, used her father’s influence as Angola’s former president to acquire lucrative stakes in several blue-chip companies in the banking, telecommunications and media sectors, amassing one of Africa’s largest fortunes in the process.