MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
IMF denies Argentine court info on how to calculate inflation: “files are inviolable”
Nestor Kirchner replaced Indec technocrats with political cronies and since then inflation in Argentina has been below two digits The International Monetary Fund (IMF) avoided replying to an inquiry required by Argentine Judge Alejandro Catania, who handles the case of the lawsuit filed by the Domestic Trade Secretariat against private consulting agencies.
The IMF judicial department stated that “the IMF files are inviolable” and that the institution’s representative in Argentina “is granted immunity regarding legal proceedings with written or spoken words. In light of this and other privileges and immunities that the IMF and his residing representative are granted, that are not obliged to comply with the requirement”.
Judge Catania handles the case of the lawsuit filed by the Domestic Trade Secretariat against Melconian & Santangelo private consulting agency, on grounds that they publish inflation rates that lack scientific rigour and for which they were heavily fined.
The administration of President Cristina Fernandez has had a longstanding battle with private consultants and the IMF regarding economic indexes, particularly regarding consumer prices.
While the Argentine stats office Indec, which was considered a very professional independent organization until former president Nestor Kirchner replaced experts with political appointees, currently argues inflation stands at one digit, private consultants and multilateral organizations, plus some provincial governments have a different two digit picture, double or more that figure.
Faced with the challenge from private consultants the Argentine government imposed heavy fines until they reveal their methodology. To avoid the threat Argentine lawmakers from the opposition publish a monthly ‘congressional index’ on inflation which is an average of private consultants’ estimates.
Furthermore the Argentine administration and the IMF are on a collision course because the government of President Cristina Fernandez promised last July to review the inflation index with the objective of a ‘normalization’ of stats. The two sides agreed on a 180 days timetable which is up next January, and nothing has happened so far.
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Read all comments“the IMF files are inviolable” and case closed. Next!
Dec 02nd, 2011 - 01:43 am 0Maybe the index should be protected as a mater of national security through Parlament to make the Argentine indec also “inviolable”. it seems that you can get a lot more done with beaurocracy then you can with foreign relations. the ball is back in Argentin's side, in any case a lot more things get done in Argentina when they stop feeding the white elephants and start working to feed themsleves. no body is there to help Libya, Iraq or Palestine, the tide turns in favor of those who are willing to help themseleves, IMF might not care much About Argentina's rights but I want to know where our tax money went, if there was anything good on those contracts I am sure CNN would be all over it, This is just an inconvenient truth for IMF thugs. here is a note from from the ex-president's grave Sun Aug-01-04 ”International Monetary Fund policies are to blame for impoverishing 15 million people in Argentina, the country's president has said.
Dec 02nd, 2011 - 05:35 am 0Nestor Kirchner's comments came after an internal (IMF report) criticised the fund's relationship with the country over the past decade.
The report said the (IMF had exacerbated the country's economic crisis), which struck in December 2001.
But Mr Kirchner said the self-criticism was simply too little, too late.
The IMF report also blamed the government for its 2001 debt default which triggered the crisis, pushing half the population into poverty.
“Obviously we can't ignore the responsibility of the ruling class in Argentina,” Mr Kirchner told BBC correspondent Elliott Gotkine in Buenos Aires.“ I wonder if after this IMF report there was any actions taken by IMF ? like revise the contracts or bring more accountability to the process, but all we get is more dictatorshp from IMF thugs. Argentine moved a head when Nestor Kirchner replaced Indec technocrats with Argentine Nationalists and since then inflation in Argentina has been below two digits.” do we really want more then two digits inflation ?? what's the complain ?
Yeah, pull the wool over your eyes and hide while your country bleeds to death from all the money escaping abroad, you lot will have no-one to blame but yourselves when your country goes kaput...again
Dec 02nd, 2011 - 05:49 am 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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