Nicaragua canceled the legal status of 17 non-profit entities, including the Association of Private Banks (Asobanp) “for non-compliance with the laws” and their assets will pass into the hands of the State, according to a resolution published this Friday in the official gazette.
Signed by the Minister of the Interior (interior), María Amelia Coronel, the resolution indicates that these organizations failed to comply for between two and 27 years with the laws that forced them to present financial reports with details of income and expenses.
“Referred to the liquidation of the goods and assets of the 17 aforementioned agencies, will be applied in Law 1115,” says the official newspaper La Gaceta.
Related news: Ortega annihilates the Association of Private Banks in Nicaragua
Law 1115, in force since May 2022, regulates non-profit organizations and establishes that in case of non-compliance, the government can deprive them of their legal status and take control of their assets.
According to the resolution, Asobanp did not present financial statements in the period 2020 to 2021 and its board of directors had expired since April 3, 2020.
In addition to Asobanp, with legal status since 1994, other entities affected are the Nuevas Esperanzas Association of Patients with Chronic Renal Failure, the Central Market Merchants Association, and the Central American Association of Ibero-American Breed Horse Breeders, among others.
Asobanp, chaired by Juan Carlos Argüello, from Banco de la Producción, did not immediately comment on the measure.
In 2021, banker Luis Rivas, a former director of Asobanp and Grupo Promérica that operates in Central America, was arrested and sentenced in 2022 to 13 years in prison for “conspiracy to undermine national integrity and illegally carrying or possessing a firearm.” ”.
After the 2018 protests, President Daniel Ortega tightened regulations and controls on civil society organizations and some 2,000 have been declared illegal.
In addition, it has sent some 200 political opponents to prison, including a Catholic bishop.
