The Assets of Africa’s Most Important Art Collecting Couple Have Been Frozen Amid Angola’s Corruption Crackdown

An Angolan court has ordered a freeze on the Angola-based assets
of Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire daughter of the
country’s former president, and her Congolese husband, the African
art collector Sindika Dokolo. The move was undertaken at the
end of last year as the Angolan government attempts to reclaim what
it says is more than $1 billion owed by dos Santos and her
associates. The couple has vowed to fight what they describe as a
politically motivated campaign.

The matter is shaping up as a major showdown between the state
and Africa’s richest woman. Last week, Angolan president João
Lourenço and his Congolese counterpart Felix Antoine Tshisekedi
Tshilombo met in the Angolan city of Benguel, issuing a joint
statement urging dos Santos and Dokolo to exercise “maximum
cooperation with the competent authorities of the state and the
Angolan court,” according to Reuters. The
same statement urged “international cooperation to support the
effort to combat corruption and impunity in Angola,” and said that
Angola was empowered to pursue measures to recover assets
“illegally placed abroad.”

Former defense minister Lourenço was the successor to dos
Santos’s father, José Eduardo dos Santos, for control of the ruling
People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA)
party. Since taking power in 2017, however, he has made
anti-corruption a priority as the country faces financial
contraction. Oil-rich Angola is listed on various indexes as
one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and the 37-year
rein of dos Santos has been widely
associated with corruption and nepotism.

For her part, dos Santos has told the Financial
Times that she is preparing a legal rebuttal to what she
calls an attempt to dismantle her businesses and “erase the legacy”
of her father. From an unknown location in Africa, she called
the court order a “politically motivated witch-hunt.”

Speaking directly to Artnet News, Dokolo characterized the asset
frieze as a “political vendetta” and a “commercial dispute.” His
enviable contemporary art collection, which numbers around 3,000
works, is based in the Angolan capital Luanda, but Dokolo says that
it has not been affected by the recent scrutiny on the couple’s
assets.

Back in 2016, Isabel dos Santos was appointed the head of
Angola’s state-owned oil firm Sonangol by her father before he
ended his final presidential term. When Lourenço succeeded him
in 2017, the new president fired Isabel dos Santos from her post.
Lourenço later also removed her half-brother Jose Filomeno de Sousa
dos Santos from his position as head of the nation’s sovereign
wealth fund, following allegations of
corruption involving an alleged transfer of $500 million
from the sovereign wealth fund out of the country.

Isabel dos Santos’s portfolio of now-frozen assets are held in
diverse sectors, including banking, supermarkets, and
telecommunications. Forbes has estimated her wealth
at $2.2 billion. She is frequently dubbed “the Princess,” a
nickname she objects to. “I don’t know many princesses who get out
of bed and build supermarkets,” she said to Financial
Times.

BBC Africa correspondent Andrew Harding described the fact that the order
freezing her assets the was read out on Angolan state television as
“a powerful gesture in a country where, for decades, the Dos Santos
family had seemed untouchable.”

Though both Isabel dos Santos and Sindika Dokolo are staples at
international galas, charity events, and
parties, Dokolo has
left a formidable stamp on the
art world in particular with regards to African art. Pieces from
his expansive collection are frequently sent on loan to major
museum shows, including documenta 14 in Kassel
and Athens and BOZAR in Brussels. His
holdings include works by major figures from the continent such
as William Kentridge,
Zenele Muholi, and
Yinka Shonibare.

The post The Assets of Africa’s Most Important Art
Collecting Couple Have Been Frozen Amid Angola’s Corruption
Crackdown appeared first on artnet News.