The confidential report from the company's outside consulting firm said that Kissama had been "utterly mismanaged" and that "Shell's donation now looks like little more than an ill-advised attempt to curry favor with some well-placed generals."
Buerk, the Shell spokesman, said the company disagreed with the consultant's assessment. "The donation was made with the best of intentions," he said. FESA officials provided several past annual reports and financial summaries. The 2001 summary of fundraising and expenditures, the latest made available, said that $9.6 million had been raised for the year, but it itemized only $417,000 in contributions .
In addition to oil industry donors, an Israeli arms broker, a South African diamond firm and a Brazilian construction company contributed to the foundation, according to its annual reports.
Thompson, the energy industry consultant, said Angolan officials, usually from Sonangol, the state-owned oil company, were designated to solicit contributions to FESA from oil companies and other foreign firms.
A typical contribution is $100,000, he said.
"If you say no, they will pester you," Thompson said. "They can make life pretty difficult, so you look at the pros and the cons, and you decide what to do."
ChevronTexaco said that the company and its partners in Block 0, a huge Angolan oil field, contribute a combined $50,000 annually to FESA. "This funding goes towards projects supporting education, sports, maintaining national heritage and providing medical aid," ChevronTexaco said in a statement.
A former Mobil official in Angola said the company had made several small contributions before its merger with Exxon in 1998. ExxonMobil said it could find no record of payments to FESA.
Marques, the journalist, offered a Times reporter a tour of some FESA projects, including the renovation of a public garden near the foundation's headquarters.
This is FESA's second restoration of the garden. After the first renovation, completed in 2002, residents from a nearby slum without running water used the fountain as a water source, and kids bathed in it. Someone finally walked off with the water pipes.
Three years ago, FESA renovated the Imperial Santana School in the poor Rangel district. The pink-and-cream building has colorful painted figures of Donald Duck, Pluto and other Disney characters on the walls, as well as a sign: "FESA, with us now and in the future."
