Luanda, Jan. 12, 2026 (Lusa) - The head of the Association of United Scrap Dealers of Angola (ASUA) on Monday acknowledged the need to ban the activity due to vandalism and proposed registering operators and appointing inspectors to investigate the origin of materials.

Speaking to Lusa, Tounkara Mohamed Saidou considered the measure necessary in view of the increase in cases of vandalism of public property, which have caused the State significant losses, and announced that he intends to address this situation with members and define strategies to support the Government, regretting, however, that many scrap dealers, especially young people, have been left without their livelihood.

At issue is an executive decree by the government which, since last week, has banned the commercial activity of scrap dealers and ferrous and non-ferrous metal weighing stations, in order to prevent illegal practices and protect public property.

With the decree, all licences for this activity have been banned and revoked, which, according to the Angolan authorities, has fuelled the crime of vandalism of public property in the country, mainly affecting the electricity, sanitation, water, transport and other sectors.

According to the head of ASUA, a native of Guinea-Conakri, the association intends to bring together all scrap dealers in Luanda with the aim of finding mechanisms to support the Government in combating this phenomenon.

"We cannot be against the measure, because acts of vandalism are constant and this is very bad, because the government spends a lot of money to meet the needs of the population and people of bad faith destroy it, we cannot allow this," he stressed.

Tounkara Mohamed Saidou, also leader of the West African Traders' Community in Angola, stressed that the association will begin by raising awareness among operators in this activity, more specifically the weighing stations, of the scale of the problem, with a proposal to place inspection officers to check the origin of material.

"We want to first register all scrap dealers in Luanda, for example, to know how many there are, where they work, and [in] each factory that receives these products, have some members of our association to control the shipments," he said.

Saidou warned that those involved in the vandalism of public property are not the owners of the weighing stations, so the association also questions who receives this material.

"Because in the neighbourhoods, we work in backyards, [with] 20-foot containers, it is children who bring in ferrous material that is no longer in use, and that is what we buy to weigh by the kilo," he said, pointing to car wrecks and cans, among other things, as examples, rejecting the idea that scrap dealers acquire vandalised material.

"They buy [this disused material] and when they reach between two and four tonnes, they take it to the processing factories," he noted.

For several years, the Angolan government has been grappling with the phenomenon of vandalism of public property, which has been characterised by the theft of ferrous material from railways, electricity substations, manhole covers, metal rubbish bins, water meters, among other items.

"They [scrap dealers] don't buy this, which is why we want to lend our support to the government," he added, lamenting that many people have been left without a livelihood, especially young people who may turn to crime to meet their needs.

According to the head of ASUA, the business is dominated mainly by West African citizens, some Angolans and Chinese, with the Asians owning processing factories that receive large quantities of material.

The government decree emphasises that the measure applies exclusively to individuals or companies that carry out, as their main, secondary or occasional activity, the provision of ferrous and non-ferrous metal weighing services, regardless of their origin.

This includes weighing houses, scrap dealers, intermediaries, warehouses linked to the ferrous and non-ferrous metal weighing business, operators of scales or scrap weighbridges for commercial purposes, collection points, yards, warehouses, parks, commercial shipyards and other spaces not permitted by applicable commercial legislation, with the exception of legally licensed industrial units, namely steelworks, metallurgical plants and other manufacturing industries.

NME/AYLS // AYLS

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