Africa-Press – Angola. The president of the General Tax Administration and other senior Angolan tax officials will be questioned as declarants on Tuesday in the “AGT case,” which involves a €100 million fraud.
This will be the second session of the adversarial hearing, in the process known as the AGT case, in which 38 defendants, including six companies, are said to have defrauded the State of more than 100 billion kwanzas (around 100 million euros).
The court may then maintain the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s charges, choose to drop some crimes (not indict) or open other cases and list more defendants.
The national director of the Treasury, the director of the Public Debt Unit and the president and other administrators of the General Tax Administration will be heard as witnesses in this session, according to a press release from the Superior Council of the Judiciary.
The adversarial investigation was requested by 14 of the defendants who did not agree with certain elements of the accusation, and is taking place behind closed doors.
In the first hearing, which took place last week, the defendants’ defense complained about the lack of adequate conditions at the Viana District Court. Many of the defendants are senior officials of the General Tax Administration (AGT), an agency overseen by the Angolan Ministry of Finance, who were arrested earlier this year for alleged involvement in a fraudulent VAT refund scheme.
Angola’s Finance Minister, Vera Daves de Sousa, apologized to Angolan taxpayers and citizens last February for the harmful acts committed by public officials, assuring that those responsible will be held accountable and that the government remains “relentless” in its fight against corruption.
The adversarial investigation is an optional phase, intermediate between the accusation and the indictment, legally granted to the defendant.
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