The president of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), Dante Mossi, once again defended the financing he gives to the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
The regional entity official underwent a public debate with Manuel Orozco of the Inter-American Dialogue and Ryan Berg, a researcher with the Americas Program at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CSIS).
Berg criticized the fact that CABEI, led by Mossi, continues to give loans “disproportionately” to the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo despite the fact that the United Nations Group of Experts for Nicaragua has presented a report that concludes that crimes have been committed in the country. against humanity.
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“3.5 billion dollars has been approved in the last five years, that’s crazy,” Berg detailed.
Mossi assured that CABEI loans are not something that “I can turn on and off”, that his job is that this is done “properly”. “We do not work for political complaints, but we have a mechanism through which people can complain and see if there are legitimate reasons to stop the project, this happens in all countries, not only in Nicaragua,” he said.
The CABEI president indicated that the bank has a compliance department and this is the one that has to make sure if there are sanctions or not that restrict loans, he said about the financial restrictions on officials of the Nicaraguan dictatorship.
“In all countries there are sanctions: Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica. All are subject to a sanction or blacklist regime. The international community has a way of influencing what we do,” he said.
Manuel Orozco refuted Mossi that what CABEI does has a political perspective, even the contracts are political, and that CABEI’s Political Context Analysis Unit includes human rights.
«The increase in CABEI loans to Nicaragua occurs at the same time when there is the criminalization of the democratic process in the country. 400,000 Nicaraguans have left from 2020 to 2022 and 600,000 have left for political reasons, I don’t think he is being cynical,” he said.
Mossi defended himself by assuring that CABEI is not a political entity and that “we work for very specific beneficiaries,” including Nicaragua and its regime. “We make sure that what we finance is legal, because we work with money that is global,” he said.
CABEI is the main “sponsor” of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. In recent years, the financing of this regional entity went from representing 21.39% of the Public Investment Program (PIP) in 2017 to 39.14% in 2022.
Dante Mossi, the president of CABEI, has earned the nickname “dictator’s banker” for a reason: giving money to dictators like Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
