ANGOLA AGAIN

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I refer this time to the second article on Angola by Mr. Peter Shapiro (September 26).

He noted that in Angola there has been "an industrial boom in the past decade." This is true, and he would also have been correct had he made mention of the boom in agriculture, transportation, communications, education, health services, etc. But Mr. Shapiro preferred instead to imagine guerrilla activities in Cabinda, which he did not see. Also, he cites some statistical figures which are blatantly distorted, and misrepresents some facts.

Mr. Shapiro states that in Angola "no budget has yet been made up for the current fiscal year." He is obviously under the impression that the Portuguese fiscal years begins in June as in the United States. He makes no effort to verify the accuracy of this assumption or information. In fact, the Portuguese fiscal years begins in January. The budget published for the year 1972 is currently in force, and a copy of it can be consulted in this Embassy.

Based on this false promise, he quotes distorted figures on the Angolan budget: The ordinary budget for the current year is $378 million, not $140 million; the extraordinary budget is $32 million, not $310 million. The total Angolan budget is $410 million, not $450 million. The defense budget for the year 1972 was $59 million ($32 million ordinary, $27 million extraordinary), not $150 million. The total budget for Angola in 1971 was $348 million. Of this sum, $50 million was allocated to defense, a figure equal to about 14 per cent, and not 20 per cent, of the total budget.

"The Orange Disc" of June, 1972, a Gulf Oil Publication, reports that the production of oil in 1971 amounted to 99,000 barrels a day. Mr. Shapiro states that it was 130,000 barrels a day. Mr. Shapiro also implies that oil revenues are not essential to the Angolan government. This is correct. But it is not all. In fact, extraction of oil, though an asset, has not made a major contribution to the development of the territory. Since 1958, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, one of the enterprises extracting crude oil in Angola, paid to the Angolan government the total amount of $35.6 million. It is a relatively small amount, not only when compared to the total budget of that State, but even when set alongside the contributions of other large enterprises. "Diamang", for instance, paid $13.5 million for the single year of 1971.

The position of crude oil in the exports field should be shown in its true perspective. The total exports of the State of Angola in 1971 amounted to $446 million, of which only $51 million represents the share of crude oil. Furthermore, it has to be noted that most of this income is immediately transferred to foreign countries. Obviously, Gulf leaves in the territory only payments to the government and to local contractors, and local salaries.

Crude oil may be a very important source of revenue to other countries such as Nigeria, Algeria, and Iraq, where its share of the total exports varies from 60 per cent to 95 per cent. It certainly is not so in Angola, where the exports are diversified into a large number of products sold all over the world. Sincerely yours,   Reque Felix Dias   Press Attache   Portuguese Embassy, Washington

Mr. Dias's practice so common in the Portuguese government of adjusting official statistics for propaganda rather than public edification. This is only to be expected in a country where the government restricts the freedom of the press to check up on its claims. The statistics I used in my articles came from independent sources, not allied with either the Portuguese government or the rebel groups new battling against it.

The reason for the discrepancy between the statistics Mr. Dias quotes concerning Gulf's production and revenues to Portugal and the figures I provided is one of time. Mr. Dias quotes last year's figures; I give this year's.

Mr. Dias's assertion that a budget has already been drawn up for Angola for 1972 may be correct, but no 1972 budget was made available to me when I requested one. I was repeatedly told that the budget was "not yet available."   Peter Shapiro