Africa-Press – Angola. Reports of irregularities in the admission processes at public and private institutions in Angola are recurrent, with the new Minister of the Interior recently deciding to reassess more than seven thousand agents admitted by the Migration and Foreigners Services (SME), Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) and Civil Protection and Fire Service (SPCB), recruited under the management of the former minister.
Jurists interviewed by Voice of America point to high levels of corruption and the ineffectiveness of judicial institutions as central factors in the problem.
Every day, citizens report difficulties and frustrations when trying to get a job, especially in public institutions.
After taking office in November, the Minister of the Interior, Manuel Homem, decided to question the more than seven thousand agents admitted by the SME, SIC, SPCB, recruited under the management of his predecessor, Eugénio Laborinho.
The measure aimed to determine who was responsible for classifying each person and, above all, whether there was payment to guarantee admissions.
These hearings began after the suspension of the training course for agents, in the face of accusations that they had facilitated the entry of foreign citizens and, in some cases, admitted people with criminal records.
For jurist Albano Pedro, the opacity in public tenders reflects the impact of the high levels of corruption that permeate the country.
“In general, the biggest problem we still have is corruption. There is no doubt about that, it does not only have to do with recruitment processes, with public competitions for hiring staff, it also has to do with public competitions for the provision of services to the State, it has to do with the payment of public debts to the private sector, it has to do with transparency in the processes of document processing itself”, argues Pedro, for whom it is a transversal situation “that has to do with practices that have not been discontinued in the behavior of both public servants and individuals linked to public institutions, and many of them even private institutions that use the public purse”.
That lawyer considers that the recent investigation work conducted by the Ministry of the Interior is, at the very least, an acknowledgement that the situation is far from acceptable.
“The minister, by drawing attention to the fact that he invalidated the process itself, is a clear demonstration that he used the law itself as a criterion for analysis and realized that the employees did not act in accordance with what is established in the legal system. Therefore, I think that it is a problem related to the misconduct of the employees involved in this process,” he concludes.
For her part, for jurist Evandra Furtunato, the reality of public competitions is discouraging for Angolan youth.
“Really speaking, public tenders end up being a source of frustration for young people who are eager to find their first job. Firstly, due to the very small number of vacancies available and then, often, due to the limited skills that young people have today, largely due to the high cost of training in Angola, but also due to the sometimes excessive requirements demanded in public tenders”, points out Fortunato.
She also adds that “the greatest evil of all, which still weighs on public competitions, is nepotism, which is, unfortunately, entry through knowledge, through the nephew, the uncle, the cousin, the so-and-so, which increasingly frustrates young people and increases their performance”.
Voice of America attempted to speak with Anderson Paulo Mota, director of the Office of Information Technology and Institutional Communications at the Ministry of the Interior, but was unsuccessful.
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