Africa: Incomplete Promises Cast Doubt on Chinese Firms

It is against this backdrop that an eager conglomerate has recently been drawing attention and generating headlines throughout Africa. China-Sonangol is part of a global network of companies extracting oil in Angola, buying gold in Zimbabwe, building luxury condominiums in Singapore and developing property in Manhattan. Its executives have met with African heads of state and challenged the global oil and mining giants who’ve been operating on the continent. And China Sonangol ventures have attracted strategic curiosity — some of its deals are the subjects of U.S. State Department cables made public by Wikileaks.

China Sonangol has shown itself to be innovative and well-connected. But as fast as it has risen, it’s also drawn the kind of criticism that plagued previous authors of extractive schemes in Africa. China Sonangol is under scrutiny for unfulfilled promises of public investments and opaque deals with African leaders such as Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Eduardo dos Santos in Angola. There are also questions about the company’s work in Guinea, where a United Nations investigation linked the former military regime headed by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara to the massacre of over 150 protesters in 2009.

Reporters from the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University spent 11 months investigating the complex network of holding companies and ventures connected to China Sonangol — and the Hong Kong and Chinese executives behind it.

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