Lula da Silva says the IMF should convert African debt to investment in infrastructure

Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who is on his first two-day visit to Angola, attended the closing ceremony of the Angola-Brazil Economic Forum and spoke to nearly five hundred participants.

African countries owe nearly US$800 billion to the IMF, Brazil’s president said, questioning why the financial institution and developed countries have not struck a deal and invested in development rather than monetizing the African continent’s debt. It pays for it”.

“To do the work that needs to be done on the African continent, especially the energy issue, this debate is what we have to do, if we think that everything is normal, things will not change”, he stressed.

Brazil’s president considered it “not normal” for people to be born as poor and die as poor as their descendants.

“Come invest in Angola, a country that looted and looted the diamonds it produced. I don’t know how much money these diamonds made for Angola or half a dozen smart people,” Lula said. Da Silva also cites Angola’s riches in gold, oil, gas and agriculture.

“When one person eats ten meals a day and the other eats nothing, it does not work, we create a poor society,” the head of state appealed to the need for better distribution of wealth.

He told Angolan businessmen that Brazil had “truly” returned to the African continent and that the country wanted to finance Angola again, which would “pay well” for Brazilian investment.

“Angola is a country that has always promised us that every dollar invested here will be repaid, and it has done so, because this country is not the result of a ruler’s map, this country is the result of a very bloody struggle. We will win independence, but then we will build the country,” said Lula da Silva.

The Brazilian president has repeatedly supported this type of forum in all the African countries he visits, because politicians do not know how to discuss investment, they only know how to “open doors”.

Brazil moved away from Africa, Lula da Silva continued, “because of a lack of long-term vision or immediacy, thinking that the investment should be brought back the next day”.