The Congressional control body found flaws in the way in which the different levels of the State handled the debt in pesos.
The General Audit of the Nation (AGN) An investigation began to determine the causes of the re-profiling of debt maturities in pesos at the end of Mauricio Macri’s government. The study indicates that the organization carried out a Special examination on Debt Strategies and Activities related to Treasury Bills during the period 2016-2019.
The operation was authorized by means of a Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) that reached an amount representative of 25% of the current budget quota of $595,991 million and involved the rescheduling of payment obligations corresponding to securities representing short-term national public debt.
The report was presented during the session of the College of Auditors General, in which they participated the president of the AGN, Juan Manuel Olmos, and the general auditors Francisco Javier Fernández, María Graciela de la Rosa and Alejandro Nieva. It was approved unanimously.
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The work carried out by the Public Debt Supervision Commission, chaired by Fernándezfound that “the operation derived from a series of deficiencies in debt management and negatively impacted our country’s ratings,” because it was considered that Argentina was failing to comply with sovereign obligations.
The irregularities detected by the AGN in the debt reprofiling
As causes of the problem, the AGN detected that “there was no effective coordination” between the Treasury, the National Public Credit Office and the Central Bank (BCRA) for the management of Treasury Bills (LETES). The control body indicates that “the financial programs were not designed according to standards required for healthy debt administration and there was no financial strategy that frames the management of Treasury Bills.”
“In addition, It was found that the auditee did not develop specific processes that ensure the efficiency of the management of this debt nor did it calculate financial risks, those that were not considered in their financing decisions through LETES, violating the applicable regulations. Nor was the regulatory framework related to these instruments adequate or precise,” the study indicates.
The report states that “The five identified causes show that the management of this debt did not reach optimal standards of efficiency and economy that it needs to meet its objectives and achieve solvency and sustainability of public debt over time”.
Source: Ambito
