Lagarde with Macri.
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The college of auditors of the General Audit Office of the Nation (AGN) yesterday approved by majority a harsh study carried out on the loan that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) granted to the government of Mauricio Macri in 2018. As Ámbito had advanced, the report it detected numerous irregularities and warned that due to its magnitude and its characteristics the agreement “had an adverse impact on the debt structure and its risks.”
During the meeting, the general auditor, Francisco Fernández -in his capacity as president of the Public Debt Supervision Commission-, explained the “main findings of the report” and the importance of this audit as it is the first to be carried out on a loan of the IMF.
In the meeting, held yesterday in the Eva Perón Room of the AGN headquarters, the head of the AGN, the radical Jesús Rodríguez, and the general auditors Miguel Ángel Pichetto, Francisco Javier Fernández, María Graciela de la Rosa, Juan Ignacio Forlón, Gabriel Mihura Estrada and Alejandro M. Nieva.
“The signed agreement, of almost US$57,000 million, turned out to be the most important in the history of Argentina and also in the history of the Fund, representing 127 times the indebtedness capacity of our country,” recalled Fernández.
“Due to its magnitude and characteristics, this indebtedness had an adverse impact on the debt structure and its risks,” said the AGN in a press release on the agreement sealed by Macri in 2018, which brought the agency back to the country after twelve years old
Main conclusions
As reported by the audit, among the main findings of the lapidary investigation were “relevant regulatory breaches, such as the lack of authorization of the debt, the omission in the application of specific processes for multilateral loans, the non-existence of the BCRA opinion on the impact of the operation in the balance of payments and the signing of the Agreement by officials without legal powers to do so”.
In addition, it was warned about “the lack of adequate technical interventions to assess the costs and risks of the operation, the non-existence of an opinion from the Internal Audit Unit, as well as the lack of timely and effective legal advice, highlighting above all the omission of the actions of the Ministry of Finance, which was specifically in charge of public debt management”.
The audit report also highlighted that “almost 30% of IMF disbursements were used to finance the outflow of financial capital.” In conclusion, it pointed out that “the processes and procedures related to the loan did not ensure efficiency and effectiveness in debt management, causing legal breaches, affecting prudence in debt management, and violating adequate financing supervision.”
Source: Ambito
