The Vice President of the Nation, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, retweeted this afternoon a publication of the political group La Cámporawhere it is recalled that in 2018 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “granted the largest loan in its entire history” to the government of Mauricio Macri.
“Four years ago the IMF granted the largest loan in its entire history to the government of Mauricio Macri,” says the tweet that Cristina Kirchner shared through the social network Twitter, which It also has a video that covers the events and journalistic records of that time.
Four years ago the IMF granted the largest loan in its entire history to the government of Mauricio Macri. pic.twitter.com/CXxmYYgiAu
– La Campora (@la_campora) June 20, 2022
In the audiovisual record, the covers of the Clarín and La Nación newspapers can be seen, with headlines indicating that the IMF was asking to “strongly lower the fiscal deficit” and a “political commitment”, followed by images of former President Macri with the managing director of the IMF at that time, Christine Lagarde.
You can also see the speech in which the president of Together for Change announces that he has “decided to start talks” with the Fund, followed by videos of police repression in the streets of the country and protests in various squares of the national territory, raising posters against the adjustment.
On June 20, 2018, the board of directors of the international financial organization approved a new aid plan for the country, under the Stand By loan line, for which Argentina would receive US$50,000 million, an amount of money that never before had been disbursed by the agency.
The loan
It was a disbursement of US$ 15,000 million that was part of the first agreement for US$ 50,000 million – an unprecedented magnitude for the organization and for Argentina – which, even so, was later expanded to US$ 57,100 million months later despite not comply even with the first review of the program, in the midst of a strong run against the peso and speculation about the fragility of the economic program.
According to a report by the Center for Political Economy (CEPA), if all scheduled disbursements (US$57 billion) had been met, Argentina would have exceeded half the total amount that the IMF disbursed in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic to 85 countries. .
However, the actual disbursements made to Argentina (US$ 44,000 million) exceeded what was given to countries outside the Western Hemisphere in a pandemic.
“The disbursements were used to finance capital outflows (contrary to the IMF’s own statute). Between January 2018 and December 2019 there were disbursements of USD 44,867 million and the formation of external assets amounted to USD 54,099 million. Every three months, the funds received were no longer in the country,” the report said.
Among the most questioned elements of that double Stand By program were the formal breaches in which it incurred – breach of art. 61 of the Financial Administration Law and evidence of a prior opinion from the BCRA on the potential impact of credit on the balance of payments, among others-, in addition to ignoring criteria that enabled a loan of that volume to be granted: probability of repayment (the debt gross public as a percentage of GDP went from 57.1% to 86.2%, and today it remains at 82% ); lack of access to international markets; and alerts from the Evaluation Office (OEI).
In addition, the CEPA document pointed out, the repayment structure signed in 2018 “was always unaffordable for the country.”
“For the year 2021, USD 5,072 million (45% of the total maturities) should be paid. In 2022, some USD 18,901 million, and in 2023, USD 19,144 million,” the document detailed.
