May 26, 2023, 4:10 AM
May 26, 2023, 4:10 AM
Fassil properties will be sold to pay the salaries and social benefits of the workers of that bank, announced the auditor Carlos Colodro. A month after the intervention of that financial entity, the official asked for patience from the thousands of employees of the fourth largest bank in the country, who resumed their protests and began pressure measures to enforce their demands.
“We are creating conditions for the immediate sale of real estate,” reported Colodro, in his first public appearance after the Financial System Supervision Authority (ASFI) decided to intervene on Banco Fassil on April 26, because it no longer had the ability to repay savers’ money.
“This bank, which today is in intervention, did not have sufficient funds and did not have the means to pay social benefits.”, he maintained, a situation that according to him was explained to the workers’ delegates.
Juan Carlos Alarcón, representative of Fassil’s dependents, asked that the more than $2.5 million in trusts that that financial entity had and that were transferred to Banco Unión be used to pay the payroll of the intervened bank.
In the last days, the workers resumed their mobilizations demanding wages, settlements and that most of them be employed in the banks that were awarded the deposits and portfolio of the intervened entity, or that they be separated to be able to work in another company.
Yesterday, a group of them cut the route to the north from the early hours of the day, at the height of the municipality of Warnes.
Faced with the claim, the Police intervened at the blockade point with chemical agents. In La Paz, another group held a sit-in at the ASFI gates.
Colodro asked the workers for “tranquility and patience” so that the intervention work started a month ago is completed.
“We see the concern of them, who have children, but they also have to understand that we are making all the effort”said the controller, without specifying how many or what will be the properties that will be sold.
This position caused greater uncertainty among the workers, since a total of 73 properties -between parking lots and offices- were recorded preventively within the investigations conducted by the Special Force to Fight Crime and the Prosecutor’s Office against four former bank executives who allegedly committed financial crimes.
Alarcón maintained that the sale of the properties requires “time and money”, something that Fassil workers no longer have.
He explained that this situation was exposed in a meeting in which representatives of the Ministry of Labor and the Ombudsman’s Office participated, in addition to the pro-government deputy Deysi Choque, who was booed by the workers when trying to intercede in the social conflict.
As a result of this meeting, it was agreed to hold a technical table for Tuesday. “We are going to show them that there is where to get the cash to pay us“, said.
From the Ombudsman’s Office they assured that a solution for the workers of that bank will come out of this technical table. They even anticipated that officials will continue to receive medical assistance from social security.
The Ministry of Labor, for its part, assured that it “will enforce” the rights of workers and that it “will support them to pay all their benefits.”
Since last April 26, the ASFI filed criminal lawsuits against senior executives of Fassil, for having given million-dollar loans to people who did not have the ability to pay.
Yesterday, in a statement, the regulator confirmed that the intervention “was the product of the bad practices of the executives and directors”of the bank, “and, above all, of the irregular handling of the commercial and business businesses of the shareholders and managers of its business group, which are outside the scope of ASFI’s supervision work.”
