Angola Approves $69 Billion Budget With $4.1 Billion Deficit $BP $TOT

Angola Approves $69 Billion Budget With $4.1 Billion Deficit $BP $TOT

Angola, Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, approved a state budget that forecasts a deficit while doubling social spending from two years ago.

The government plans to spend $49.9 billion and collect revenue of $45.8 billion, resulting in a $4.1 billion deficit, according to budget documents. It expects to receive about $19 billion in loans and foreign aid, the documents show.

Angola is boosting social spending as it rebuilds from a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. Oil dominates the economy, accounting for more than 60 percent of domestic output and 97 percent of export earnings. Offshore fields operated by companies including Exxon Mobil Corp.,Chevron Corp., BP Plc and Total SA pump about 1.8 million barrels of oil a day, second only to Nigeria in Africa.

“The problem with increasing social spending is about the institutional capacity to spend, in a correct and rational way, all the money the government wants to put in these sectors,” Manuel Alves de Rocha, an economist at the Catholic University in Luanda, said by e-mail today. “It means nothing to increase this part of the budget if the money goes to the pockets of government officials.”