MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Redrado conditions participation before congressional advisory committee

Another twist for the ongoing legal conflict at the Central Bank

The ousted head of the Central Bank Martín Redrado demanded Tuesday Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner revoke the DNU emergency decree which she had issued in order to dismiss him from his post as the Central Bank governor.

He imposed this as a condition for him to participate in the Congressional Bicameral Committee advisory body's special session which was scheduled to address ´Redrado’s attitude and conduct.

“I request this Bicameral Committee to ask the Executive branch to revoke the DNU emergency decree N° 18/2010 as a previous step for my declaration before this Committee in a special session, so I am able to defend myself and my rights as the Central Bank's chief,” Redrado pointed out in a letter sent to the advisory body.

Redrado demanded those who form the Bicameral Committee to attention in “the need to make clear the Executive branch's decision to revoke or not the DNU 18/2010.”

He went deeper in the matter and highlighted that “each time that, facing a removal procedure the Government still finds valid, the Bicameral Committee's opinion -which the law has established it should a previous resolution-, seems not to satisfy the purpose for which it was created.”

The letter, which was sent around midday, was addressed to the Bicameral Committee's president Julio Cobos and deputies Alfonso Prat Gay and Gustavo Marconato.

Within this framework, Redrado sought ways to make the advisory body's performance an invalid one. The sessions started today with the summoning of several officials in order to comply with the Central Bank Law Procedure in order to remove the entity's chief.

Redrado summed up in his letter: “The Federal Administrative Contentious Court ruled on Friday a resolution in favour of the demand for the DNU emergency N° 18/2010 to be revoked. This ruling reaffirmed the importance of the Article N°9 of the Central Bank's Law Procedure.”

Mrs. Kirchner is furious with Redrado and has repeatedly called for his resignation after he denied 6.6 billion US dollars from the Central Bank’s reserves for a Bicentenary Fund with which help to pay 13 billion USD in maturing 2010 debts and bond holdouts (estimated in 20 billion USD) from the 2002 default.

Courts have supported Redrado’s position by freezing Central Bank assets and suspending his “sacking”, since the Central Bank is independent from the Argentine Treasury, and it’s Congress that decides on these issues.

However Redrado was impeded from entering the Central Bank by a police ring ordered by the Cristina Kirchner administration.