Luanda - The President of the MPLA, João Lourenço, admitted on Monday that Angola needs to ensure a greater supply of energy and drinking water for citizens and industries, in the coming years, due to the great demographic pressure.
Speaking at the opening of the party's VIII Extraordinary Congress, he also recognized the need for more housing built by all agents, the State, the private sector, cooperatives and the citizens themselves, through directed self-construction.
He also pointed out the need to build more basic education schools, to considerably reduce the number of children outside the education system, invest more in the infrastructures of the national health system, especially in the primary network, as well as train more and more health and education professionals.
João Lourenço said that the road construction effort should be continuous, and particular attention should be paid to agriculture, fisheries, industry and tourism, to ensure a greater supply of goods and services, but also jobs.
To ensure the country's development in the coming decades, he said that a greater effort should be made with the education and training of staff in the different fields of knowledge, science and technology.
'These are some of the real-life and everyday problems that should concern and occupy the Party's attention, as they impact the daily life of the Angolan citizen, whom we swear to serve,' he said.
In another part of his speech, he said that Angola remains attentive to the problems that affect all of humanity, namely those related to climate change and its global consequences on the lives of peoples and the economies of countries.
Therefore, he believes that each country must do its part, as a contribution to the global effort that everyone is obliged to make.
In relation to Angola, he pointed out that it is changing its energy matrix by making the necessary transition, with the reduction of fossil fuel consumption in energy production, favouring energy from clean sources, such as hydroelectric, solar and biomass, the latter still in the portfolio.
He said that energy from these environmentally friendly sources already represents 65% of the energy produced in Angola, with a tendency to increase as soon as there is energy from the national grid connecting Gove to Matala, Belém do Huambo to Lubango, Ondjiva and Moçâmedes, as well as Malanje to Xá-Muteba, Saurimo, Dala, Luena and Dundo.
'The large project of off-grid solar parks for the electrification of numerous locations in the provinces of Huíla, Namibe, Cunene and Cuando Cubango will also be a great contribution to the fight against climate change and the development of our communities,' he said.
About two thousand delegates from the 18 provinces of the country and the diaspora are attending the VIII Extraordinary Congress, which ends on Tuesday, to discuss the adjustment to the MPLA statute and the thesis of 50 years of Independence, the only two items on the agenda of the conclave. ART/DOJ
