Ezequiel Burgo
08/08/2020 - 6:45
- Clarín.com
- Economy
The International Monetary Fund appointed a specific team of its staff to produce a document on the performance and operation of the stand-by program that the Executive Board granted to Argentina in 2018. It is an evaluation and requirement for programs that disburse aid to a country above its quota . This is the case of Argentina, which received a loan that was about eleven times its quota (US $ 57,000 million) when the SBA established a loan around four times the capital contribution.
Technical officials of the agency conducted interviews with former Argentine and Fund authorities who participated in the definition of technical aspects of the program signed in 2018 and which was active until PASO. "The staff is in the process of the ex post evaluation of the 2018 stand by with Argentina," confirmed a spokesperson for the organization.
The team preparing the document is led by Odd Per Brekk , a Norwegian economist who heads the Fund's Asia Department. The evaluation is carried out before Argentina and the IMF start conversations for an article IV and a new loan that will allow refinancing the repayment of the stand by 2018.
The Fund has already carried out this type of assessment for the cases of Ukraine and Greece . The paper on the performance of the program applied in the latter country generated its controversies.
The result of the Argentine case could be known in September. One of the aspects of the work - according to what is stipulated in this type of practice - is to include a “critical and frank” consideration on two key questions: “Was the macroeconomic strategy, program design and financing appropriate to respond to the challenges the member country was facing and in line with the Fund's policies, including exceptional access? Did the results of the program reach the objectives? " .
There are two types of performance evaluations and the Fund's performance in a country. One is this ex post evaluation (EPE) for countries that access loans above their quotas. The other is from the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), today under the leadership of Carley Collyns (former US Treasury). The EPE is made by IMF staff and under the orbit of Kristalina Georgieva. The one carried out by the IEO is carried out by agency personnel who do not respond to the technical line, although they do respond to the Executive Board. The IEO made a report on the Argentine case in 2004 and the role of the IMF in the 2001 crisis.
