• Africa.Isabel dos Santos, the richest woman in Africa who made Angola one of the poorest countries in the world
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Three years ago, the Mercer company made its traditional classification of the most expensive cities in the world. For this they used these references : the price of a movie ticket, a pair of pants, a liter of water, a cup of coffee, a liter of gasoline, a liter of milk, a loaf of bread and a bottle of beer. The conclusions were surprising: the capital of Angola, Luanda, number 147 in the global human development index but where a simple yogurt is paid at eight dollars, it occupied the first position of the most expensive city in the world ahead of Tokyo, Zurich and Singapore , although two thirds of its inhabitants live on less than two dollars a day.

How is it possible that a country impoverished by 27 years of civil war (1975-2002) has ascended to that position with 54% of its citizens suffering extreme poverty? What kind of country splashes over large oil reserves (more than 8.4 billion barrels) but has huge shortages of sanitation, sanitation, access to education, drinking water or street safety?

There is a proper name that helps answer that question: José Eduardo dos Santos, Angolan independence hero and great African dinosaur with 38 years of government behind him (1979-2017), only surpassed by the satrap Teodoro Obiang, with 40 years on the throne of Equatorial Guinea. During all those years he has not only developed a nepotism that would make the Sun King blush , but a kleptomaniac system that has looted the coffers of a country whose GDP has grown to 11% a year. The best example of this looting is her daughter, Isabel dos Santos, nicknamed the "Princess of Africa" ​​for being the richest woman on the continent, famous for the diamond beads she usually carries over.

Isabel dos Santos, who led the national oil company, Sonangol, and owns a business network with 423 companies in 41 countries, many of them in tax havens, used her father's power for years to get as much public contract The Government of Angola offered. Thus, with balls at exorbitant prices , Dos Santos went unscrupulously plundering the Angolan state and investing it in the rest of the planet. In Spain it has 18 companies, in Portugal, 142, in Holland, 32, in Mozambique, 14 ...

Forbes magazine calculates its fortune in 2,200 million dollars obtained in opaque transactions, now revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) , which has analyzed 715,000 documents that reveal the fraudulent economic activity of the business holding that she maintains with her husband, Congolese art collector Sindika Dokolo and comprising banking and finance, oil, diamonds, cement, telecommunication networks, supermarkets, transportation and large mansions throughout the world.

Isabel dos Santos defended yesterday saying that "it is a witch hunt with political intent ." "What sets me apart from other people is that I communicate my business, I don't hide," he wrote on his Twitter account, where he launched a barrage of 30 tweets to announce that his computers had been hacked and to criticize journalists and political enemies . Nothing new under the sun.

But corruption suspects an open secret in his country. It was necessary for his father to leave power so that justice decided to act. The Angola prosecutor's office froze the accounts and assets of the businesswoman last month . The attorney general, Helder Pitra Gros, said he is determined to "use all means" to take Angola to Dos Santos, who lives at full speed between London, Monte Carlo and Dubai, where he owns an artificial island and where he also enjoys a yacht of 35 million dollars. "We will activate all international mechanisms to bring Isabel dos Santos back to the country," Pitra Gros said. His father lives in a mansion in the Pedralbes neighborhood of Barcelona surrounded by escorts and an entourage at the height of his fortune . She also has not been in her country since 2018.

Meanwhile, Angola is still trying to recover from the wounds of its long civil war. Part of the enormous cost of basic products is explained by the presence of antipersonnel mines planted throughout the country, which prevents cultivation and forces to import almost all the food that is consumed in a country that is a vergel.

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