The challenge was launched by the Minister of State and Chief of Staff of the President of the Republic, Adão de Almeida, when he spoke, this Tuesday, at the opening ceremony of the Ombudsman’s week, in Luanda.
Under the motto “The role of the Ombudsman as a mediator of conflicts between the citizen and the public administration”, the week of the Ombudsman began this Tuesday, 23rd, in Luanda, within the scope of the 19 years since institutionalization in 2005, the Ombudsman’s Office in the country.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, at the National School and Public Policies (ENAPP), the Minister of State and Chief of Staff of the President of the Republic, Adão de Almeida, challenged the institution to be aware of the challenges of decentralization and administrative relaxation in progress in the country.
“The State must be increasingly agile, more dynamic and closer. Among the set of ongoing administrative reforms, the process of administrative decentralization deserves special mention, which will lead to the institutionalization of local authorities”, he said, adding that it is in this context that the President of the Republic once again used the legislative initiative to have sent Recently, “three more proposed laws were sent to the National Assembly, awaiting discussion” by parliamentarians.
For Adão de Almeida, it is essential that the Ombudsman also prepares to extend his action to local authorities, when they are institutionalized, taking into account that they “will be part of the public administration and will provide services to those administered, a relationship which can result in conflicts between the parties”.
“In administrative action, the State permanently relates to citizens, as administrators, both with rights and obligations, the latter being in a more fragile position, he recalled.
In turn, the Ombudsman, Florbela Araújo, pointed out some of what she considered to be the main challenges facing the institution she heads, with emphasis on the growing number of complaints that have been registered.
In 2023 alone, according to the person responsible, more than seven thousand complaints were registered against the State.
Florbela Araújo said that the State’s “demanding mission to serve citizens better and better is everyone’s task. The walk is collective. It belongs to all of us, it belongs to the State.”
He also recalled that the ombudsman is the mediator of relationship conflicts, “not being able to take part or place himself on one side of the relationship […] places itself in the middle and points the way forward, through attentive and disinterested listening, unbiased […] under the sign of legality and justice, within the scope of the democratic rule of law” that Angola has assumed since 1992.
