E-Government Development in Angola

Over the last few years Angola has made a significant leap forward, developing e-Government and it still pursues this progress trend.

International e-Government programmes as well as programmes elaborated for sub-Saharan Africa play a considerable role in the digital transformation of public administration in Angola. As part of the regional Programme of increasing agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa (O Programa de Produtividade Agrícola para a África Austral) a unified accounting system for pesticides’ and agrochemicals’ turnover is being developed.

During the 2000-2010 years a single template for government websites was developed, a concept of a state intranet was formed, a single system of registration on government portals and a mail system for civil servants were under a gradual development. Some websites (for instance, the Public Procurement platform Compras Publicas) allow translation in English or other European languages including French and Spanish.

Rankings

As of 2022, according to the UN E-Government Development Survey, Angola ranked 157th with an EGDI (E-Government Development Index) of 0.38 (compared to the continental average of 0.41). As per the World Bank’s GovTech Maturity Index (GTMI), Angola was in group C among the countries with some focus on GovTech. Its GTMI reached 0.45.

Integration of Public Services

The SEPE website provides access to a wide range of public e-services – from enrolling in a driving school to electronic records of students’ grades and attendance and applying for licences (e.g. hunting, import, etc). The website offers services categorised by sectors and types of procedures. Applying for services requires registration using unique Taxpayer and Identity Card numbers.

Source: SEPE website (+Services page)

In July 2023, during the II Interministerial Meeting on Electronic Governance of the Portuguese-speaking countries, interoperability of government information systems was discussed.

Healthcare

Despite the status of a former-socialist state and the unprecedented economic growth due to the oil boom in the 2000s, Angola is still facing numerous social challenges, in particular, the lack of centralised school feeding, along with inadequate healthcare that does not cover most of the population, not to mention the low development of digitally deliverable social services. The Ministry of Health allows acquiring a vaccination certificate online. The national platform for appointments with a doctor was announced 5 years ago and has not been put into operation yet. Online veterinary services do not exist either.

The website of the Integrated Center for Public Security (Centro Integrado de Segurança Pública) provides statistics on COVID-19 cases, recommendations as well as the form for self-diagnosis.

Source: Centro Integrado de Segurança Pública (self-diagnosis form)

e-Taxes

The website of the General Tax Administration (the public entity supervised by the Ministry of Finance) serves as a main portal for taxpayers. It provides access to a Tax Simulator that allows calculating the amount of taxes to be paid. There is also a Taxpayer portal (Portal do Contribuinte) for submitting tax returns electronically. In January 2023, the platform for appointments was introduced by the General Tax Administration.

Source: General Tax Administration (Electronic Services page)

Identification and e-Signature

Since the 1st January 2023 an electronic signature has been implemented in the country, which is going to serve as another means of end-to-end identification along with universal electronic ID that has been used since the mid-2010s. A face recognition system has not been introduced yet.

Transport

The promising avenues for the development are online registration of road accidents and enhancing traffic camera use, in particular, expansion of camera control zones and functionality. The toll collection system for heavy vehicles has been functioning for a rather long time together with the national e-payment system Multicaixa.

The implementation of a video surveillance system began with a pilot project in Luanda where 700 cameras were installed in 2019, yet this number is highly insufficient for a large agglomeration. Nevertheless, The Integrated Public Security Centre (CISP), which was established for surveillance data processing, can be considered a step forward in developing the system. The latter was created under a contract with South Korean company KT Corporation.

Since 2014 The Institute of Cadastre and Cartography has been responsible for providing private zoning services and designing electronic regester projects. However, a specialised land cadastre platform has not been created yet, and extracts from cadastral data are obtained through the one-stop shop portal SEPE. 

Public Procurement

Under the regional anti-corruption initiative USAID, a rather modern and convenient anti-corruption portal for public procurement Compras Publicas has been created. It is partly duplicated by a portal Transparência Pública. The public procurement platform allows search of documents by categories, time period and other criteria, supplier registration, and application for tenders.

Source: Compras Publicas (main page)

Land Use Services

The country-specific characteristics have a great impact on the development of e-services in Angola, including the ones connected with land use and business. Meanwhile, the electronic land registry (Registo Predial) still has room for improvement.

G2B Services

The national portal PRODESI, which was created to support entrepreneurship and attract investments in the food industry as part of work on economy diversification, provides background information mainly for business.

Author:

George Abzianidze