Angolan President axes dos Santos son from $5bn wealth fund months after sacking his daughter

Angolan President Joao Lourenço has axed the son of his long-serving predecessor Jose Eduardo dos Santos barely months after axing his daughter as well.

President Lourenço removed Jose Filomeno dos Santos as head of the country’s $5 billion sovereign wealth fund, the latest in a series of moves that sidelined dos Santos allies.

He announced on Wednesday that he was replacing the board of the fund, including its head, following an external inquiry into the fund’s performance and governance.

Carlos Alberto Lopes, a former finance minister has been named the new board chairman.

Lourenço, who took office in September after dos Santos stepped down after nearly four decades in power, has since coming to power swiftly wrested control of key areas of the economy from powerful dos Santos allies by removing or sacking them.

Last month Lourenço dismissed the former president’s daughter Isabel dos Santos as chairwoman of the state oil company Sonangol, replacing her with Carlos Saturnino, an oil industry veteran.

Lourenço has also appointed allies and former prime ministers Lopo Fortunato Ferreira do Nascimento and José Carlos Marcolino Moco as non-executive directors of Sonangol, further solidifying his power within the company.

Oil accounts for a third of Angola’s gross domestic product and more than 95 percent of its exports, according to the World Bank, making the leadership of Sonangol one of the most important and powerful jobs in the southwest African country.