Oil companies routinely employ politically connected Angolans for important posts. BP hired as a top executive Jose Goncalves Martins Patricio, a former Dos Santos press secretary. When asked about hiring the former official, BP -- formerly British Petroleum -- responded with a copy of a press release listing his credentials for the job.
Henry Thompson, a London-based energy consultant who once worked for BP in Angola, says that when multinational companies need a local security firm to guard their facilities or handle construction work, Sonangol, the state-owned oil company, directs them to one owned by a government official or favored businessman. Foreign executives even receive recommendations on whom to rent their villas from.
"The list is endless, but no one wants to sit down and demand transparency from the [government]," Thompson said. "The money you're paying out is very small compared to the benefits you receive. It's not worth making noise about."
Angola's elite lives in walled estates and weekend beach houses. Its members employ private guards, have backyard generators and water tanks to deal with frequent utility breakdowns, and dine at clubs such as Miami Beach, which is owned by the president's daughter, Isabel. A mixed grill of meats there costs about $40 -- almost a month's pay for workers earning the minimum wage.
"We have leaders who are foreigners in their own country," said Rafael Marques, a journalist who once was jailed for calling Dos Santos a dictator.
Eighty percent of Angola's 10.8 million people live in poverty. At Beautiful Rose Farm, about 120 families live in tin-and-brick shacks between ExxonMobil's compound and Dos Santos' sprawling presidential retreat. Aside from one woman who works as a maid for ExxonMobil expatriates, residents say, none of the squatters has benefited from Angola's oil wealth.
A muscled man who gave his first name as Mateus said he fought as a government soldier during the civil war and now makes about $50 a month working six days a week at a construction job. He recounted how his 4-year-old son had died recently, probably of malaria, which is common here. All he knew was that the boy fell ill and was dead within 24 hours.
"The oil companies haven't helped us," he said. "To get a good job with them, you need a godfather."
Civil War Gets the Blame
The Dos Santos regime puts the blame for Angola's poverty on the civil war.
