Defense spending is the government's largest expenditure.
In some cases, payments for weapons bypassed the Ministry of Finance and central bank and were made directly through Sonangol, or through the Presidency. The lack of transparency surrounding these purchases has meant that there have been substantial discrepancies between government estimates of defense spending and independent estimates. For example, official government figures stated that defense spending amounted to 11.1 percent of government expenditures in 1997-1998. In 1998-1999, defense expenditures amounted to only 27.2 percent of government spending, but 13.8 percent was unrecorded. There were no unrecorded defense expenditures in 1999.