LUANDA, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Reports of an imminent government reshuffle and rising tension between the ruling MPLA party and the main opposition UNITA party are worrying investors in the major African oil producing nation of Angola.

The MPLA, which emerged victorious from a 27-year civil war against UNITA in 2002, has been accused of corruption and of not doing enough to tackle widespread poverty.

Other concerns include uncertainty about a successor to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and heavy dependence on oil revenue, feeding demands for more transparency as Angola tries to regain investor confidence after the global financial crisis.

GOVERNMENT SHAKEUP

Media reports about an imminent government reshuffle and the possible sacking of powerful Economy Minister Manuel Nunes Junior have raised uncertainty about the economic outlook.

Nunes Junior oversees monetary policy, a $1.3 billion loan programme with the International Monetary Fund and is also in charge of setting up the country’s first sovereign wealth fund.

Transport Minister Augusto Tomas, who has won praise from the ruling MPLA party for restructuring national airline TAAG, is seen as a possible successor to Nunes Junior.

LUANDA, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos on Tuesday denied a claim by a Congolese woman that he is her father.

In a rare statement that shed light on the personal life of one of Africa’s most enigmatic leaders, Dos Santos, 68, said Ngutuila Josefa Matias, 46, had tried to meet him and had stated publicly that she was his daughter.

The president said he had moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1961 during Angola’s fight for independence from Portugal but denied having any affairs there.

During the three years that he lived there, “I never had any girlfriend or lover. At the time all I thought about was completing my studies,” dos Santos said.

The Congolese woman, who recently arrived in Luanda, said in an interview with an Angolan weekly, Folha 8, on Sunday that she and other members of dos Santos’s family used to refer to the president as Edu.

Dos Santos, whose three decades in power have prompted many Angolans to refer to him as “the boss,” also denied this claim.

“I am Jose at home, my family members call me Ze, the younger ones refer to me as Manu Ze, my nephews call me uncle Ze and during my childhood … everyone called me Jose Eduardo,” he said.

LUANDA, Sept 10 (Reuters) – The campaign for Angola’s 2012 elections is off to a ill-tempered start with the ruling MPLA party and the opposition UNITA party accusing each other of dirty tactics that threaten a return to violence in the oil producing nation.

The polls will only be the second since the end of Angola’s civil war that pitted the Russian and Cuban-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against UNITA, backed by the U.S. and apartheid South Africa.

The MPLA, which won the war in 2002 and 82 percent of the vote in elections two years ago, is likely to win the elections in 2012, but it looks increasingly worried about UNITA’s accusations of not doing enough to fight poverty and corruption.

“UNITA has said things that can incite civil unrest through Radio Despertar,” MPLA spokesman Rui Falcao told Reuters on Friday, referring to a recent interview by the leader of UNITA in which he said riots in Mozambique could take place in Angola.

UNITA leader Isaias Samakuva’s made these comments after the government raised fuel prices by up to 50 percent last week. The deadly riots in Mozambique, which also took place last week, were triggered by a 30 percent rise in bread prices.

“But Angola is not like Mozambique,” said Falcao. “We continue to work to improve the lives of ordinary Angolans.”

Yet despite Angola’s vast oil reserves and billions of dollars spent rebuilding roads, bridges and other infrastructure after the war, analysts say the government still has a long way to go to improve living standards in the West African nation.

LUANDA, Sept 8 (Reuters) – Angola’s main opposition UNITA party is using last week’s riots in Mozambique along with false accusations of government corruption to incite civil unrest in the oil-producing nation, a ruling MPLA party spokesman said.

Rui Falcao was referring to a speech by the leader of UNITA, Isaias Samakuva, in which he criticised a government decision to raise fuel prices by up to 50 percent, adding that poverty in Angola was already worse than in Mozambique.

“It is clear that there is a dirty campaign aimed at tarnishing the MPLA’s image ahead of the 2012 elections,” Falcao said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. “UNITA is part of this dirty campaign.”

A 30 percent rise in bread prices in Mozambique last week triggered widespread protests in the impoverished African nation in which 13 were killed and more than 100 injured.

In his Sept. 3 speech to UNITA supporters, Samakuva also said there was widespread government corruption and Angola needed to to be ruled differently “because what happened in Mozambique could also take place in Angola.”

UNITA spokesman Alcides Sakala says the opposition party is only trying to make the MPLA, in power since Angola’s 1975 independence from Portugal, more accountable.

Angola rivals Nigeria as Africa’s biggest oil producer but an estimated two-thirds of its 18.5 million people live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

LUANDA, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Angola’s ruling MPLA party brushed aside reports of corruption involving senior government officials earlier this year as a smear campaign aimed at hurting the party ahead of general elections in 2012.

The party’s powerful Political Bureau said in a statement on Monday the campaign was spearheaded by Angolan nationals hired by local and foreign organisations to “tarnish everything the executive power does” ahead of the vote.

“Their goal is to defeat the MPLA and hand over power to those that have always served their interests,” the MPLA said in a statement without specifying any names.

The statement comes after an Angolan journalist and rights activist accused President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his inner circle of taking control of the economy by grabbing stakes in firms ranging from the oil to the banking sectors.

In his report, “The Angolan Presidency — The Epicentre of Corruption,” Rafael Marques points the finger at deals led by Minister of State Manuel Vieira Dias Junior and Manuel Vicente, chief executive of state-run oil firm Sonangol.

Both officials have repeatedly denied the report’s allegations, which were published on Marques’ anti-corruption website www.makaangola.com.

“It is complete rubbish,” Vieira Dias Junior recently told Reuters.