Isabel was head of the country’s oil firm, SONANGOL.
LUANDA, Feb 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Angolan government’s request to freeze overseas accounts of Isabel dos Santos has been granted by the Portuguese authorities, media outlets reported.
This is the latest leg in a resolve by Luanda to bring the billionaire daughter of ex president Jose Eduardo dos Santos to book for alleged corruption and pillaging of public funds.
Isabel was head of the country’s oil firm, SONANGOL, a post she was controversially handed by her father. President Lourenco fired her months after taking office in 2017. Her brother Jose Filomeno is also facing corruption charges over his time at the head of the national sovereign fund.
Local accounts of Dos Santos were frozen by a court late last year before an exposé into corruption files linked to her wealth were released last month. She has repeatedly rubbished the reports and stressed that she had earned all her wealth legally.
Luanda has slapped charges of embezzlement and financial misappropriation against the 46-year-old who has been living outside the country for the better part of the time that her father left office.
President Joao Lourenco recently told visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel that his reformist government was working to recover funds stolen from public coffers and stashed abroad.
He said his government was determined to fight corruption in the graft-tainted oil-rich country.
Dos Santos built up a vast business empire over the past two decades, with stakes in several Angolan and Portuguese companies. Her fortune is valued at $2.1 billion by Forbes Magazine, which named her Africa’s richest woman in 2013. — NNN-AGENCIES