AFRICA’s richest woman has been handed one of the most powerful positions on the continent by her father, the President of Angola.

Critics believe Jose Eduardo dos Santos is trying to create an “almost monarchical succession” by making his daughter Isabel boss of state oil company Sonangol.

Already worth an estimated £2.3bn, she takes on the post after her father fired the entire board in April.

Next to the presidency, the job is considered to be the most powerful position in Angola which is now Africa’s biggest oil producer.

“The way he is channelling resources and public jobs to Isabel and his other children implies he is planning almost a monarchical succession... passing power from himself to one of his children,” said Angola analyst Aslak Orre.

The president’s son, Jose, is boss of Angola’s sovereign wealth fund which was set up to invest profits from the country’s oil riches.

The nation is also home to lucrative diamond mines and the wealth of the president’s daughter comes from her interests in the southern African state’s most important sectors, including diamonds, media, telecommunications and banking. Much of her business empire is located in Portugal.

She rejects accusations that her wealth is due to her father’s role as president and has been made through public money and state funds.

On her appointment to Sonangol she said she aimed to “ensure transparency” in the company’s dealings and improve its ability to perform globally.

WHAT’S HAPPENED TO THE MONEY?

Africa’s second longest-serving president after Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Dos Dantos said in March that he would step down in 2018.

The announcement was greeted with scepticism by his critics who claim he is becoming increasingly authoritarian and has failed to act on similar announcements made in previous years.

They also accuse him of failing to spread the country’s oil wealth with only a small elite benefiting while the rest of the population endures crushing poverty.

Maternal and child mortality rates are among the highest on the planet and it is rated as one of the world’s most corrupt countries.

The rich live in a bubble of luxury and flock to the playground of Ilha near the capital of Luanda where cocktails cost $60 and drivers show off their Porsches as they cruise past the sumptuous villas and glamorous nightclubs.

Here it is almost as if people compete to show how rich they are, paying £137 for a chicken or £68 for a watermelon in the supermarkets without complaint.

Meanwhile, around 70 per cent of the population tries to survive on under £1.37 a day.

The rich are sheltered from the poverty by the regular bulldozing of the shacks in Luanda.

Around three million residents are jammed into the capital city, which had half a million people before Angola’s independence from Portugal in 1975.

More than two-thirds live in shanty towns known as musseques.


WHAT ABOUT THE WAR?

The disparities in the country are shocking.

In 2013 it had a GDP of around £68bn and is one of the largest economies in Africa. However, it comes 125th out of 150 in the UN’s Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index which measures the losses in human development due to inequality in health, education and income.

One child in five does not live past five-years-old and it is estimated that £22bn went missing from the country’s oil accounts between 2007 and 2010.

It is true that 27 years of civil war scarred the country but that ended in 2002.

The president no longer has an excuse for poor health and education services or the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few even although Angola has been hard hit recently by the drop in oil prices.

Dos Santos has been in power since 1979 and keeps a tight rein on all aspects of the country.

Born in 1942, he signed up to the MPLA guerilla army when he was 19 and trained in radar technology and oil engineering in the former Soviet Union.

The civil war began in 1975 after the Portuguese withdrew following the 1974 revolution which saw the collapse of their colonial empire.

At the time the MPLA was in control of Luanda and declared it was the government of the newly independent country.

However, this was disputed by the two other guerrilla movements, Unita and FNLA, who installed a rival government in Huambo.

Dos Santos was elected as head of MPLA in 1979 and is credited with ending the civil war in 2002 after the death of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi.

HAS HE HUNG ON TOO LONG?

Many Angolans still praise the president for turning the former socialist economy into one of the globe’s fastest growing but others believe he has held onto power for too long and blame him for failing to fairly distribute the wealth from the oil boom.

He still won Angola’s parliamentary elections in 2008, the first for 16 years, but then brought in a new constitution that strengthened his powers and abolished direct election of the president for a system which installs the leader of the ruling party in parliament.

He is head of the police and army and much of the media is controlled by the state.

In April, he dismissed the board of Sonangol in an attempt to revive the fortunes of the company after the fall in crude oil prices hit profits.

This was just after he announced his intention to step down in 2018 but he did not give any indication of his preferred successor.

Dos Santos has been described as “an accomplished and shrewd economic and political dealmaker with an instinct for political survival”.

“Against all odds, he has remained in power since 1979, overcoming challenges of war, elections and at the same time displaying a highly refined political craftsmanship,” said Alex Vines of London think-tank Chatham House.

It looks as though his shrewdness is now being used to ensure the Dos Santos name remains influential even when he is gone.