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Kent Deng
London School of Economics
London, UK
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nomic orders.
The Portuguese
Escudo Monetary
Zone
Its Impact in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa
Maria Eugénia Mata
Nova School of Business and Economics
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Carcavelos, Portugal
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To my father’s memory. To my mother.
Preface
The Portuguese decolonisation of the 1970s broke the monetary ties that
existed between the Mainland and each of its former colonies, whose
names (before and after independence) are always spelled in Portuguese,
in this book:
vii
viii PREFACE
• Firstly, the reasons for the failure of the attempt to build a Portuguese
monetary area between the early 1960s and mid-1970s.
• Secondly, the processes of monetary decolonisation of the various
territories of the Portuguese colonial empire.
• Part II deals with the difficulties of the Escudo Monetary Zone, the
technical discussion on its financial problems, and the introduction
of the 1971 reform.
• Part III deals with the Portuguese monetary decolonization upon
the military revolution of 25 April 1974, which put and end to the
prevailing political regime. Decolonization agreements dictated
main conditions on the end of the colonial escudo, to establish
national monetary units and national banking systems.
• Part IV deals with the rise of the new monetary and financial systems
in the new independent countries. It analyses the various territories
that comprised the Portuguese colonial empire. The newly indepen-
dent countries preserved their names in Portuguese, and they are
referred to as such in this book. Guiné became Guiné-Bissau, and it
is referred to as such throughout this book. The names of the banks
are also expressed in Portuguese, and this book respects their names.
The analysis covers the last quarter of the twentieth century and the
first decade of the second millennium. The new-millenium years are
too close to the present day to allow an objective full analysis for the
purpose of historical perspectives, and many sources are not yet avail-
able in the archives, because they are considered to be useful for
current-day technical purposes. Only remarkable aspects that frame
the international monetary relationships will be mentioned. They are
the monetary agreements (namely with Cabo Verde and S. Tomé e
Príncipe, which continue in force), and the opening of stock markets.
xi
xii ACKOWLEDGEMENTS
Research Center hosting the project. I also feel indebted to the many who
discussed with me the research topics and kindly gave their advice and
stimulus to write the book, particularly Luís Catela Nunes (my co-author
in a paper on the Escudo Monetary Zone), António Agostinho, who pro-
vided me many balances of inter-territorial payments, Luís Saramago, for
sources and discussion on the monetary agreement with Guiné-Bissau,
Nuno Valério, who patiently read my draft and provided very useful com-
ments, José Rodrigues da Costa, for information and bibliography on
stock exchanges in the new countries, Luís Campos Cunha, for decisive
aspects on the monetary agreement with S. Tomé e Príncipe, António
Pinto Barbosa, José Tavares and Jorge Braga de Macedo, with whom I
discussed several African issues, Robin de Andrade, who explained me the
construction contracts of Cahora Bassa, João Ferreira do Amaral, to whom
I am indebted on exchange paralell markets in Guiné, and David Justino,
who shared information on this period. John Huffstot, who corrected my
English, and Mário Roldão, who received a one semester scholarship to
help me in processing the data, should also be thanked.
As regards the transition period following the independence of the ter-
ritories, I benefited enormously from the discussions and co-operation
with research teams working on similar issues for Cabo Verde and
Moçambique, namely with João Estevão, José Cláudio Mandlate, and
Napoleão Gaspar.
Last but not the least, I thank my family for their unconditional love
and support.
Any errors, omissions or misunderstandings are my responsibility.
Note
1. As part of the same research initiative, in October 2017 Banco de Portugal
organized, jointly with the European Association of Banking and Financial
History (EABH) the conference “Money in Africa - Monetary and financial
decolonisation in Africa in the twentieth Century”.
Contents
xiii
xiv Contents
Sources243
Index263
List of Figures
xv
xvi List of Figures
Fig. 7.3 Change in the reserve assets of each EMZ partner toward the
Rest of the World. (Source: Estatística Cambial, Balança de
Pagamentos, Arquivo Histórico do Banco de Portugal. Unit:
Million escudos)103
Fig. 7.4 Overall accounts (or change in reserve assets of each overseas
territory) with the Mainland, and of Mainland with the
overseas territories as a whole. (Source: Estatística de
pagamentos Interterritoriais. Arquivo Histórico do Banco de
Portugal. Unit: Million escudos)104
Fig. 7.5 The Angolan annual net debit positions in a monthly cumulative
accounting. (Source: Relatórios Mensais do Agente, Arquivo
Histórico do Banco de Portugal. Unit: million escudos)107
Fig. 7.6 The Mozambican annual net debit positions in a
monthly cumulative accounting. (Source: Relatórios Mensais
do Agente, Arquivo Histórico do Banco de Portugal. Unit:
million escudos)108
Fig. 7.7 Angolan overall account (changes in reserve assets). (Source:
Estatísticas dos Pagamentos Interterritoriais, Informações
estatísticas da Metrópole e Ultramar, Sistemas de Pagamentos
Interterritoriais. Arquivo Histórico do Banco de Portugal) 109
Fig. 7.8 Mozambican overall account (changes in reserve assets). (Source:
Estatísticas dos Pagamentos Interterritoriais, Informações
estatísticas da metrópole e Ultramar, Sistemas de Pagamentos
Interterritoriais. Arquivo Histórico do Banco de Portugal) 110
Fig. 7.9 GDP per capita in Angola, Cabo Verde, Moçambique, and
Mainland. (Source: Author’s calculations based on GDP,
Population and Inflation taken from Nunes et al. (2011) and
Madeira (2008)) 114
Fig. 10.1 Liabilities and Equity of the EMZ Fund over time, by
Stakeholder and Distributed Profits. (Sources: Balance sheets and
accounts of the Escudo Monetary Fund. Relatórios do Conselho
de Direcção do FMZE 1963–74, ARQUIVO HISTÓRICO DO
BANCO DE PORTUGAL 7450011 para o período 1963–74
and Relatórios do Conselho de Direcção do FMZE 1975–1979,
Arquivo Histórico do Banco de Portugal 7450011) 154
Fig. 11.1 The headquarters of BNU/Banco de Cabo Verde in Cabo
Verde, Praia city. (Source: BNU Historical Archives in Arquivo
Histórico da Caixa Geral de Depósitos) 165
Fig. 11.2 The headquarters of BNU in Bissau. (Source: BNU Historical
Archives, in Arquivo Histórico da Caixa Geral dos Depósitos) 171
List of Figures xvii
Table 2.1 The issuing of the 1.5 billion escudos of the capital of the
Monetary Fund of the Escudo Zone 15
Table 2.2 Ceilings for the automatic loans for each of the territories in
Decree-law 44703 15
Table 2.3 Ceilings for the special loans to each of the territories defined
by Decree-law 44703 17
Table 3.1 Value of currencies in the Foreign Exchange Management
Funds on 1 March 1963 26
Table 3.2 Available metropolitan escudos from the Foreign Exchange
Management Funds of other territories before 1 July 1963 26
Table 3.3 Loan needs in Guiné in 1963 27
Table 3.4 The interest rates approved on 11 November 1964, for loans
borrowed from the EMZ Fund 37
Table 4.1 The Moçambican Foreign Exchange Management Fund
positive position (1959–1963) 55
Table 4.2 The interest rates approved on 28 June 1967 for loans
borrowed from the EMZ Fund 59
Table 4.3 The interest rates approved on 28 November 1968 for loans
granted by the EMZ Fund 60
Table 6.1 Participation of the territories in the capital of the Fund
(Decree-Law nr. 479/71 of 6 November 1971) 94
Table 6.2 Settlement distribution of the new amount of capital for the
Escudo Monetary Zone Fund, proposed on 22 February 1972 95
Table 7.1 Mozambican debt to the Mainland on 30-11-1973 in
thousand escudos113
xix
xx List of Tables
As territories will develop and education will spread, local elites will become
more numerous and able to assume increased tasks without risk, and advan-
tage, for the national community.4
We have been criticized for our persistent commitment to the ideal multira-
cial society in the tropics, as if such an idea was opposite to the human
nature, the universal moral order or the interests of people, but it is the
contrary that happens. Without discussing this problem, I will say that we,
the Portuguese, don’t know how to be in the world in a different way, even
because it was in a kind of multi-racialty in which we framed our nation
eight centuries ago, after the end of several invasions, coming from the East,
North and South, that is to say, from Africa itself. From then we preserve a
natural trend – which we quote at ease, as it has been recognised by remark-
able foreign sociologists – for contacts with other people, from where any
concepts of superiority or racial discrimination have been always absent.5
Monetary System needed a stable monetary anchor (which was the dol-
lar), because currencies pegged to precious metal recalls the desire of sta-
bility, which had been expressed in the earlier historical experiences of the
gold-standard (before 1914, and even after the First World War).7
Mundell’s theories did not refer to the growing desire for indepen-
dence that colonies expressed in all European colonial empires in the
world after the end of the Second World War, in the historical context of
the Cold War clash between the USA and the USSR, the two global pow-
ers. They consider, however, that all European countries were suffering
from the extensive destruction that resulted from the ravaging military
conflict of 1939–45.8 However, a European common currency unit also
had a role to perform. In the cold war context, any US difficulties might
have a counterbalance to the dollar if two major currencies existed in the
Western civilisation.9
Indeed, since 1965 Mundell had envisaged a European monetary area
that “would parallel the dollar and the sterling areas”.10 These areas were
defined after the monetary agreements of 1946 and 1947 that followed
the Bretton-Woods system foundation. Soon “British governments
learned that the management of sterling as an international currency was
constrained by American and European attitudes”, because of the British
decline in the context of decolonisation: the sterling area included all
members of the Commonwealth except Canada, all British colonies and
Iraq, Kuwait, other Persian Gulf sheikdoms, Libya, Jordan, Burma,
Iceland, and Ireland.11
According to Schenk (2010:132), the UK feared the co-operation with
the six founders of the European Economic Community (Belgium, the
Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, and Italy): closer British
“co-operation with the Six on reforming the international monetary sys-
tem was rejected, and instead it was agreed that collaboration with the
United States should continue”. The economic philosophy for free circu-
lation of Portuguese commodities throughout the empire was linked to
the Portuguese decision to frame a currency zone with the overseas terri-
tories under Portuguese political sovereignty, while joining EFTA, “which
is of the highest importance for Portugal”, because of “the smallness of
Portugal’s market in terms of actual and potential demand”.12
It is the purpose of this study to focus on the Escudo Monetary Zone
(EMZ), the framework of its multilateral compensation system, organisa-
tional difficulties, and problems at work. The sustainability of a monetary
zone is a high-interest issue, from a global perspective. A coloniser rule
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY TO STUDY “THE PORTUGUESE ESCUDO… 5
Notes
1. Bonin 2014; Maddison 2001; Newit 1995, p. V; Alexandre 1979.
Bettencourt and Curto 2007.
2. Bonin and Valério 2016.
3. The founding instrument was decree-law nr. 44,016 of 8 November 1961.
Free trade would be accomplished until 1 January 1972 (article nr. 1).
4. Salazar 1962, pp. 4, 6, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, (AHU).
5. Ibid, p. 6.
6. On the wartime escalation of white-settler nationalism in Africa, Rathbone,
and Killingray (eds) 1986.
7. Swoboda 1999, p. 4.
8. On the ways that the War contributed to decolonization in Africa,
Rathbone and Killingray 1986.
9. For the consequences on the British imperial financial relations,
Krozewski 2001.
10. Swoboda 1999, p. 3. Mundell 1973.
11. Schenk 2010, pp. 21–22, 83.
12. Pintado 1964, p. 32.
13. On the franc area see Banque de France 2012. On the sterling area see
Schenk 1994; Schenk 2010.
14. Nautz 2015.
15. Grauwe 2014, p.ix.
16. BNU Boletim Trimestral, 2° e 3° Trimestres de 1966, p. 26.
Bibliography
Akita, Shigeru, Krozewski, Gerold, Escobar,ita Watanabe Shouchi, (eds), The
transformation of the International order of Asia, Decolonisation, the Cold War
and the Colombo Plan, London, Routledge, 2014.
Alexandre, Valentim, Origens do colonialismo Português moderno: 1822–1891,
Lisbon, Sá da Costa, 1979.
Banque de France, Direction Générale du Trésor avec recherche historique par
Vincent Duchaussoy, Zone franc, 40 ans de coopération monétaire, Paris, 2012.
Bettencourt, F., Curto, Diogo R. (eds), Portuguese Oceanic Expansion 1400–1800,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
BNU Boletim Trimestral, 2° e 3° Trimestres de 1966.
Bonin, Hubert, Banque et identité commerciale. La Société générale, 1864–2014,
Paris, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2014.
Bonin, Hubert and Valério, Nuno (editors), Colonial and imperial Banking
History, Abingdon, Routledge, 2016.
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY TO STUDY “THE PORTUGUESE ESCUDO… 7
Angola, the issuer for Angola, and BNU, the issuer for all other ter-
ritories, as agents of the Foreign Exchange Management Funds that
existed for each of the territories; these were the settlement accounts
(contas de compensação).
4. The balance of these bilateral accounts produced surpluses or defi-
cits that were calculated monthly.
5. An automatic multilateral settlement of surpluses and deficits was
then taking place monthly, a multilateral clearing proceeding, at the
1:1 parity rate among the Mainland escudo and the different colo-
nial escudos.
6. In this way, net positions for each of the territories could be estab-
lished monthly in Mainland escudos “by means of suitable entries in
the corresponding reserve accounts”.14
7. The Escudo Monetary Fund (EMF) was designed to facilitate the
operation of the system by means of automatic loans, or special
loans, to enable each Foreign Exchange Management Fund of an
overseas territory to balance its inter-territorial and international
payments. Automatic loans were allowed up to an amount of 1/3 of
the concerned territory Escudo Monetary Fund’s capital, and were
automatically granted whenever a territory had a net debt balance
greater than the escudo reserve of this territory (unless the local issu-
ing bank, as agent of the Foreign Exchange Management Fund of
this territory, were to give notice on the possibility of selling gold or
foreign exchange to the Banco de Portugal to be used for this pur-
pose). Special loans could be made available when the ceiling of
automatic loans was reached, but the Board of Directors’ authorisa-
tion depended on detailed justification by the Foreign Exchange
Management Fund of the territory.
The Monetary Fund of the Escudo Zone had capital amounting to 1.5 bil-
lion escudos, 1/3 of which was allocated to the concession of automatic
loans to the overseas territories in case of difficulties in meeting net debt
positions. The remaining 2/3 could fund loans for the same purpose or
any transaction between two territories. Exceptionally, and with the
authorisation of the Banco de Portugal, the remaining 2/3 of the Fund
capital could also be used in obtaining international means of payments
for international transactions.
The issuing of the 1.5 billion escudos of the capital of the Monetary
Fund of the Escudo Zone (Table 2.1) was authorised through the emission
of 1500 debentures of 1 million escudos each, with the Portuguese central
state as guarantor.22 Casa da Moeda, was the printer, under the rule of the
Administrator-Engineer Tavares Fernandes. The contributions should be:
2 THE ESCUDO MONETARY ZONE 15
Table 2.1 The issuing of the 1.5 billion escudos of the capital of the Monetary
Fund of the Escudo Zone
Ceilings for the automatic loans for each of the territories were estab-
lished (Table 2.2)23
According to the rules, automatic loans had no specific deadlines by
which to be repaid, but any payment surplus obtained by the borrowing
territory would be used for the loan repayment. Moreover, whenever a
debtor territory had reserves, foreign currency, or even Mainland escudos,
all incentives were given to the territory to use these funds for the repay-
ment of outstanding loans.
There was a Board of Directors of the Monetary Fund of the escudo
Zone.24 Manuel Jacinto Nunes, chaired this Board (Fig. 2.1).
Other members were the Governor of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino,
the Governor of the Banco de Angola, the General-Director of the
Secretariado Técnico da Presidência do Conselho, the General-Inspector of
Credit and Insurance, the Chief of the Repartição de Finanças, the
16 M. E. MATA
Fig. 2.1 Manuel Jacinto Nunes, Vice-Governor (1960–74), and acting Governor
of Banco de Portugal (1963–66), Chair of the Board of Directors of the Monetary
Fund of the Escudo Zone. (Source: Banco de Portugal, Gallery of Governors)
settling payments related with imports from the Mainland and transfers.
Moçambique was the territory with the closest access to gold, thanks to
Mozambican emigration to South Africa, namely for gold mining. As a
conclusion, the creation of the EMZ and the new role of the Bank of
Portugal in gathering the entire stock of gold reserves of the EMZ, as
agent of the entire system, obliged the transfer of gold stocks from BNU-
Moçambique, as agent of the local Foreign Exchange Management Fund
to Banco de Portugal-Lisbon. The accounting system of the EMZ Fund
records gold prices that were negotiated with BNU. The fact that BNU
could decline the sales proves the existence of a competitive international
market for gold.33 According to historical sources,34 after 11 previous
operations of this kind since 1959, the Moçambican gold-selling opera-
tions were frequent in the context of the creation of the Escudo Monetary
Zone. Ships belonging to the two navigation companies (CNN and CCN)
or airplanes belonging to the Portuguese airlines (TAP) transported the
gold bars in boxes, from Moçambique to Lisbon.
Letters from BNU to the Banco de Portugal asked what price the
Banco de Portugal offered for gold respecting the London “good deliv-
ery” requisite, transported to Lisbon, with insurance for risk on the seller
side. BNU had the capacity to negotiate the price with Banco de Portugal,
and thereby the possibility to defend the interests of Moçambique.35 From
late 1961 to September 1963, earmarked good delivery 26,780 tons of
gold were moved, at prices in the interval [32.410–32.428] escudos per
gram, above the official price of gold.36
All of this sought to contribute to the unification of the Portuguese
markets and the national economic integration. In this context, and thanks
to the decrees of 1961 and 1962, the Banco de Portugal assumed much
wider functions in order to be the central bank of the whole system of pay-
ment settlements amongst all territories under Portuguese political sover-
eignty and administration. For this purpose, a new charter for the Banco
de Portugal was issued,37 and a new contract was signed with the
Portuguese Treasury on 1 March 1963.38
Contracts between the overseas issuing banks and contracts between
them and the Portuguese Treasury were also signed.39 Banco de Angola
and BNU lost some of their local functions of central banking in the over-
seas territories in favour of the Portuguese central bank, Banco de Portugal,
although retaining the issuing monopoly under the directives of the mon-
etary policy set by the Banco de Portugal. BNU was founded in 1864 as a
private bank, and Banco de Angola was formally created during the 1923
20 M. E. MATA
Notes
1. Decree-law nr. 44016 of 8 November 1961.
2. Decree-laws nr. 44698, 44701, 44702, with detailed instructions:
Instruções a que se refere o art° 28° do Decreto-Lei n° 44698, de 17 de
Novembro de 1962, Portugal. Arquivo Histórico do Banco de Portugal.
Departamento de Serviços Jurídicos. Espaço Económico Português.
Pasta n° 4.
3. Other members were Arménio Fonseca Lopes, Álvaro Ramos Pereira,
Joaquim Nunes Mexia, João Silva Guerra, Nuno Gomes da Silva, Augusto
Lucas, and Victorino António Bento.
4. According to Bases 73ª, 76ª of the 1953 Lei Orgânica do Ultramar, and a
monetary reform for Timor by decree-law nr. 41428 of 6 December 1957
41680. BNU/01OA/5CG/1–333, BNU Historical Archives. Arquivo
Histórico da Caixa Geral dos Depósitos. Pataca was the Portuguese trans-
lation for piaster. Valério, 2016. See also Portaria 7299 of 21 August 1963.
5. Oliveira, 1961. Parecer do Conselho de Administração do BNU,
BNU/01OA/5CG/1–333, BNU historical archives. Arquivo Histórico
da Caixa Geral dos Depósitos. An attempt was pursued to uniform coined
currency in the entire Portuguese space, in April–July 1965, but it was not
successful. Uniformização da moeda metálica em curso no espaço português,
PT/CGD/BNU/01OA/5CG/1–74, BNU historical archives. Arquivo
Histórico da Caixa Geral dos Depósitos.
6. Decree-laws from 17 November 1962. Valério 2001, pp. 262–64.
7. Jornal do Comércio, 6 September 1961.
8. Pacheco de Amorim, Comércio do Porto, 12 September 1961. Jornal do
Comércio, 13 September and 20 October 1961.
9. Comércio do Porto, 26 September 1961.
10. Pacheco de Amorim, Comércio do Porto, 3 and 10 October 1961. Portugal.
Arquivo Histórico do Banco de Portugal. Departamento de Serviços
Jurídicos. Espaço Económico Português, Pasta n° 1.
11. Oliveira, 1961.
2 THE ESCUDO MONETARY ZONE 21
41. Decree nr. 364 of 14 September 1923. Decree nrs. 12124 and 12131, of
14 and 16 August 1926, authorised money-issuing functions, to replace
BNU in this privilege, in Angola. This privilege was renewed until 17
September 1976, according to the statutes of decree nr. 43963 of 10
October 1961, and Decree 44479 of 26 July 1962. Sousa, 1967,
pp. 103–106.
42. Goodhart 2003, p. 65.
Bibliography
Azevedo, Ário L., “Depoimento 2009” in Conferência de homenagem a Ário
Lobo de Azevedo, ISA, Universidade de Évora. Lisboa, INIAV, SCAP, 2017.
Banco de Portugal, Annual report of the Banco de Portugal to the Board of
Directors of the International Monetary Fund, 1963.
Bordo, Michael and Naef, Alain, “The Gold Pool (1961-1968) and the fall of the
Bretton Woods system. Lessons for central bank cooperation”, Discussion
Papers CEPR, DP 12425, Nov 2017.
Fundo Monetário da Zona do Escudo, Notes on the system for compensation and
inter-territorial payments, 1963.
Gardener, Leigh, ‘The curious incident of the franc in the Gambia: exchange rate
instability and imperial monetary systems in the 1920s’, Financial History
Review, 22, 3, 2015: 291–314.
Goodhart, Charles, “Whither Central Banking?” in Altig, David; and Smith,
Bruce, Evolution and Procedures in Central Banking, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2003: 65–92.
Kock, M. H., A Banca Central, Lisboa, Banco de Portugal, 1982 or Banca
Central, Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995. First edition Central
Banking, 1939.
Maxon, Robert M. ‘The Kenya currency crisis, 1919-21 and the imperial dilemma’,
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 17, 3, 1989: 323–348.
Mundell, R. A. “A theory of optimum currency areas”, American Economic
Review, Nov 1961: 657–665.
Newit, Malyn, A History of Moçambique, London, Hurst & Co, 1995.
Oliveira, José Gonçalo da Cunha Sotomaior Correia de, A livre circulação de
Mercadorias e o Sistema de Pagamentos Inter-regionais no Espaço Português,
Lisbon: Presidência do Conselho, 1961. Portuguese National Library.
Uche, Chibuike Ugochukwu (1999), ‘Foreign banks, Africans, and credit in colo-
nial Nigeria, c. 1890-1912’, Economic History Review 52, 4, 669-691.
Valério, Nuno, The Escudo, the Portuguese currency unit 1911-2001, Lisbon,
Banco de Portugal, 2001.
24 M. E. MATA
It took some time to set the territories’ reserve accounts. It was neces-
sary to account the balances of their Foreign Exchange Management
Funds by currency. On the starting date, 1 March 1963, the value of cur-
rencies in the Foreign Exchange Management Funds was very low
(Table 3.1). With the exception of Moçambique, where foreign transac-
tions afforded rands, pounds, Rhodesian dollars, and marcs, existing bal-
ances were made only of metropolitan escudos, on the eve of the
implementation of the EMZ (28 February 1963).2 In metropolitan escu-
dos they amounted to:
These were the initial values. Only the Foreign Exchange Management
Funds of Moçambique (and Timor, on a much smaller scale) had surpluses
(saldos credores) in foreign currencies. The first reserve account to be set
was the Mozambican.3
It was difficult to issue and settle the capital of the Escudo Zone
Monetary Fund. In August 1963 no part of the capital of the Fund was yet
3 THE DIFFICULTIES IN LAUNCHING THE ESCUDO MONETARY ZONE 27
paid up.7 The net positions of current account balances were then trans-
ferred to the territories’ reserve accounts.8
The capital of the Fund was issued according to the needs of loans for
the territories. The issuing banks should have contributed to the Fund by
using their funds in the Mainland, where they had agencies as commer-
cial banks.9
Pressing needs to award loans to Guiné and Angola demanded settling
some of the capital of the Fund: The Decree-law nr. 45146 of 20 July
1963 authorised the issue of 1500 debentures (obrigações) having a nomi-
nal value of one million escudos each, having the same guarantees of all
other Portuguese Treasury bonds. In the meeting of 21 August 1963 the
Board of Directors decided to issue 500 million escudos in a first step. Only
in September 1963 did this amount become available for providing auto-
matic loans to Guiné and Angola. Needs in Guiné were related to the end
of the circulation of the Senegal franc, which was useful for imports from
this French colony (Table 3.3).10
The second issue of 150 million escudos, in a second step, on 11
November 1963, completed 43.3% of the total capital of the Fund. The
contribution of participating institutions to the paid up capital was made
according to the share established for each of them in the total amount of
the Fund capital. The Exchequer (Fazenda Nacional) had some difficulty
in achieving its own underwriting position for the issues of capital for the
Escudo Monetary Zone. The 50 debentures of the Treasury were made
available only on 11 January 1964.11
A three-month special loan amounting to 100 million escudos was also
awarded to Angola on 20 November 1963 at a 3% interest rate, according
to the Angolan credit ceiling.12
“As for the Ministers’ competencies the Bank said what seems the better
(…) the Bank always intended that Ministries of Overseas and Finance were
not bargaining, but both co-operated for the good implementation (funcio-
namento) of the system”.14
IX
— Vielä häntä kysyy! Minähän sen tietysti söin. Luulin sinun sen
älynneen.
Santtepekki oli ainoa, joka heti pääsi selville siitä, mitä Lustin
huoneessa tapahtui. Se mikä muille oli sairaan kuumehouretta, oli
hänelle, joka näki salatunkin, valtavinta kamppailua ihmisen sielusta.
Hänen poissa ollessaan oli tuo sama tumma mies, jonka kanssa
Lusti oli taistellut, ilmestynyt tuonne vuoteen viereen ja ehdottanut
peliä. Ja voitonhimo, halu taas saada paljon rahaa, oli saanut
sairaan Lustin heti myöntymään ja niin oli peli alkanut. Onni oli aluksi
suosinut Lustia. Kultaa oli kasautunut hänen vierelleen ja vavisten
kiihkosta hän oli intohimoisesti jatkanut. Mutta sittenpä oli onni
vaihtunut. Raha rahalta vyöryivät kolikot takaisin tumman miehen
taskuun, hänen kolkosti ja kylmästi hymyillessään ja taitavasti
korttejansa käsitellessään. Tämä kiihdytti Lustia yhä enemmän.
Menettäen malttinsa hän pani peliin vähitellen kaikki, mitä omisti,
jopa vihdoin nekin rahat, joita tiesi Santtepekillä olevan. Vihdoin hän
oli aivan tyhjä, ei ollut enää jäljellä mitään. Kärsimättömästi hän
viskasi kortit syrjään ja sanoi synkästi:
*****
Santtepekki istui uskollisesti Lustin vuoteen vieressä ja hoiti häntä
hellästi. Lusti oli nyt joutunut siihen virtaan, joka juoksee nopeasti,
valtavana ja sileänä vuolteena, iankaikkisuutta kohti. Jo häämöitti
tuolla kaukana se siintävä ja rajaton meren selkä, jonka aaltoihin
vaipuminen avaa ikuisen rauhan ja levon portin.
*****
Kun Santtepekki heräsi syvästä rukouksestaan, makasi Lusti
kalpeana ja kylmänä. Hänen kasvoilleen oli jäänyt kirkas ilme, joka
ihmeellisellä tavalla nuorensi häntä.
XI
— Toki lienee vielä jäljellä vieraan vara. Käy sisään, vanha mies,
lepäämään. Lienet jo pitkänkin taipaleen kulkenut.