The Angolan government is pursuing legal action against British pressure group Global Witness.

The non-profit outfit launched a damning report last Sunday about Angola's billion dollar oil industry. The Angolan government says it is both speculative and defamatory.

Allegations of corruption against senior Angolan officials were detailed in the report which also criticised international oil companies for their compliance.

"We have the lawyers in Portugal and London who are going to deal with this" said Angola's presidential spokesman, Aldemiro Vaz de Conceicao on Thursday.

A front page report in the state-run daily newspaper Jornal de Angola, states that the Angolan government will not be intimidated by what it describes as the Global Witness campaign.

Lack of transparency

The 21-page report is certainly bold.

Angola's has some of the largest offshore reserves in the world

It claims for example that the Angolan president must take responsibility for the lack of transparency alleged to characterise Angola's petroleum industry.

Experts recently predicted that the country's oil resources will outstrip Nigeria's in terms of production within two years.

Petroleum resources provide the government with vast sums of money from which to fund its war effort against Jonas Savimbi's rebel Unita group.

Global Witness argues that the funds would be better spent on humanitarian and social projects.

The Angolan government has disputed this, pointing out that Britain used oil resources to fund its role in the Balkans.

Several observers have countered this with the fact that in Angola, unlike Britain, the public is denied access to the government's accounts.

Notwithstanding that, the Angolan government is pursuing both criminal and civil action, and says it will force Global Witness to prove the accuracy of its report described by the Jornal de Angola as "sordid and Machiavellian".