20091207

LUANDA (Reuters) - Seven years after emerging from a civil war as one of Africa's top oil producers, an estimated 60 percent of Angola's population still live in poverty, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos said on Monday.

In the opening speech to the ruling MPLA party's national congress, dos Santos said his party should do more to fight poverty and urged its members not to "pact with corruption and the embezzlement of assets from the public or the party."

Last month, dos Santos asked the MPLA, the ruling party for the last 34 years, to implement a "sort of zero tolerance" on corruption after the four-day party congress in a bid to improve the nation's image abroad.

"For every 100 Angolans, 60 are very poor and cannot eat normally every day, have no easy access to drinking water, health-care or a normal home for shelter," he said to loud applause from more than 3,000 MPLA members.

"Unemployment, illiteracy and poverty are three very grave and difficult problems to resolve that have an impact especially on women, families and children."

The government's top priority is to end widespread poverty, he said, blaming part of Angola's condition on its colonial past and a civil war that erupted immediately after independence from Portugal in 1975 and which only ended in 2002.

Since then, the ruling MPLA has been rebuilding Angola on the back of record oil exports and multi-billion dollar loans from China. But Angola still ranks as one of the world's 18 most graft-ridden nations, according to Transparency International.

Poverty has remained roughly the same since the end of the 27-year civil war, when the World Bank said almost two-thirds of Angolans lived on less than $2 a day.

Dos Santos is banking on a $1.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund -- designed to bolster Angola's foreign exchange reserves and social spending -- and rising oil prices and exports to improve the lives of ordinary Angolans.

Angola rivals Nigeria as Africa's biggest oil producer. The government is expected to spend almost a third of its $36 billion 2010 budget on health, education and housing. It also plans to build one million new homes for the poor in five years.