Nov 22, 2009
LUANDA (Reuters) - Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos on Saturday urged his party to implement a zero tolerance policy on government corruption, as Africa's biggest oil producer struggles to improve its image abroad.

Dos Santos, who has ruled the African nation for more than 30 years, said members of his MPLA party had so far been timid in supervising government spending, enabling some to commit fraud and squander public money.

"Irresponsible people, people of bad faith, have taken advantage of this circumstance to squander resources and to carry out illicit and even damaging and fraudulent acts of management," dos Santos said in a speech to his party.

Angola's government says it is trying hard to increase transparency by publishing its budget and oil revenues online, but it recently lost ground in a Transparency International Index and now ranks among the world's 18 most corrupt nations.

"Transparency in acts of management and good government are a front where there is still a lot of work to be done. The best thing is to agree to a sort of zero tolerance after the sixth congress," dos Santos said.

The MPLA party will hold a national congress next month. It holds 82 percent of the seats in parliament after winning a landslide election last year.

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Billions in oil revenues and loans from China to help rebuild infrastructure destroyed by a 27-year civil war have turned Angola into one of the world's fastest growing economies.