The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship continues its overwhelming race to turn the State of Nicaragua into a monarchy or sultanate so authoritarian that not even banking secrecy will exist.
In an extraordinary session, the Sandinista leader sat his deputies down this Monday to move forward with a bill called “Law on administration of the monetary and financial system” with which they buried what was stipulated regarding the reservation of information of financial institutions and natural persons. .
This December 23, in the middle of the “legislative recess”, that plenary session was convened only to receive and send to the Economic Commission the draft of the Law that repeals the Organic Law of the Central Bank and the Law of the Superintendency of Banks and Other Financial Institutions ( SIBOIF) and integrates under a single legal regulation those two institutions that were previously separate and independent from each other.
Although the justification of said regulations, according to the text sent by dictator Ortega to his political operators in the Legislature, indicates that the BCN and the SIBOIF maintain their functional, administrative and operational independence, in reality the new law creates an integrated mega structure both by the president of the BCN as the superintendent, who will preside over a new Board of Directors that will regulate each of the functions of the two institutions.
Serious and dangerous duties
The new Law of Administration of the Monetary and Financial System establishes as the highest management body of the new superstructure, a Board of Directors that will be headed by the president of the BCN and the vice president will be the superintendent.
It will also be made up of the general manager of the Bank and the vice superintendent. It will also include the Minister of Finance and Public Credit and four non-executive members.
Article one establishes that the object of the law is “to establish the regulatory regime for the administration of the monetary and financial system of Nicaragua,” while article two states that the new Law is applicable “to the members of the administration of the monetary system.” and financial, to the people and institutions regulated and supervised by them, as well as to the people that this Law and related laws indicate”, which indicates that it covers banks and their clients.
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Among the most notable powers contained in Ortega’s new Banking and Superintendency Law is the one established in Article 24, which states the obligation that, “the offices or agencies of the public sector are obliged to provide the information that the Central Bank or the Superintendency ask him with statistics and in the exercise of his duties.
Thus they order that “every natural or legal person or person with residence or domicile in the country, in Nicaraguan territory, whether national or foreign, is obliged to provide the Central Bank and the Bank Superintendency or the entities or persons designated by them, the information economic, financial, statistical and regulatory information requested in the established formats and deadlines.
The dictatorship’s regulations try to mask the method of surveillance of individuals’ finances by ensuring that “the Central Bank and the Superintendency will maintain the protection of this information based on the law of the matter.”
But to top off its intention of repressive control, the new Law of the dictatorship establishes, in article 136, referring to the “sending of reports” that “the Superintendency may instruct banks, non-banking financial institutions and financial groups, to send reports and information necessary to verify the state of their finances and determine their compliance with the laws, regulations and provisions to which they are subject, which must be delivered by them without alleging reservations of any nature.
And to leave no doubt that this is a repressive measure, article 137 establishes that “the Superintendency may require the assistance of the public force if it encounters resistance in the fulfillment of the supervision, inspection and surveillance functions under its charge. For these purposes, the public force will be obliged to provide the Superintendency with all necessary assistance without prejudice to the legal responsibilities incurred by the offenders.
Other powers of the new “banking superstructure”
Article four indicates that the institutions that make up the administration of the monetary and financial system will enjoy organic and functional administrative, financial and budgetary autonomy to comply with the provisions stipulated in this standard and laws related to the new law.
However, this supposed autonomy is not noticeable when the same regulations establish that the Board of Directors has the power to even select the personnel they will hire in the BCN and in the SIBOIF.
Among the powers that the new ordinance will have, it indicates that they are powers of the Board of Directors: article seven, that the new Board of Directors “will determine the remuneration of the president of the Central Bank and the General Manager, as well as the superintendent and the vice superintendent.”
In addition, this new directive “will approve the policy of selection, hiring, remuneration and benefits of the personnel of the Central Bank and the Superintendency, as well as the savings and retirement programs of said personnel in accordance with the budgetary availability of each institution.”
In summary, as of this Law, the BCN and the SIBOIF disappear as they were conceived since their foundation and become another organ of espionage and repression of the dictatorship.
