To access the credit had to ask forgiveness | The …

Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon, Niger, Benin, Mali, Mongolia, Malawi and Mongolia are among the list of countries that have asked for "forgiveness in the past five months" "to the International Monetary Fund, for lack of power of the requirements provided in their programs. Argentina will join this group tomorrow, when the IMF's board of directors will meet to allow the fourth disbursement of the loan for an amount close to $ 10.9 billion. Since the Palacio de Hacienda, they told this newspaper that the order of waiver, as it is worded in English on the authorization sent to the multilateral body, was a formality. Spokespersons for Minister Nicolás Dujovne badured that this request was not related to a violation of the objectives of the adjustment program and structural reforms. They say this responds to the lack of up-to-date information on financial results that has been approved by Fund staff.

The IMF confirmed yesterday that its directors would meet tomorrow to evaluate the case of Argentina. In addition to overseeing the report prepared by the agency 's last mission that was in the country in February, the agenda revealed that he will be dealing with a "request for forgiveness on the". applicability of the performance criteria, the review of the funding guarantees and the request to amend the performance criteria. "IMF spokesmen told PáginaI12 that" this derogation is due to the lack of availability of budget data for the month of March: Preliminary figures indicate that the objectives will be met, but the final data will not be available at the time of the board meeting, so the waiver is requested in this case. "

The Treasury Palace ensures that the requested "forgiveness" is a formal clarification linked to the lack of tax information presented in the report. They argued that the request was due to a change of date at the meeting of the IMF Board of Directors. The meeting tomorrow scheduled for March 26, the agency was to badyze the fiscal result of the fourth quarter of 2018, which is the data used for the technical mission when it arrived in February. As the meeting was postponed until tomorrow, explained the sources consulted, the government had to clarify that, although the first quarter is over, data for this period are not yet available.

However, the criteria badessed in the report that will be badyzed by the IMF's board of directors are not related to 2019 but correspond to the last quarter of last year. Therefore, those familiar with the operation of the agency indicated that Argentina's request for forgiveness would be related to lack of data or non-compliance by the end of 2018.

This is not the first time that Argentina is asking Christine Lagarde's agency for permission to violate any of the parameters set out in the agreement. The same thing happened in October when the government requested a series of waivers in the event of possible non-compliance with different quantitative program objectives related to the stock of reserves and public sector financing in the face of exchange. At that time, the entire confirmation agreement was renegotiated.

Dujovne will visit Washington next week to meet with the IMF authorities. He will be accompanied by the president of the central bank, Guido Sandleris. The new pilgrimage to the Fund's headquarters is aimed at participating in the organization's meeting and the World Bank, which will take place on April 12 and 13th. The Argentine delegation will arrive a few days in advance to complete the review with the lenders executives of the implementation of the daily auction program in dollars. The program will start working in eleven days. The activated maneuvering ability allows the Treasury to sell $ 9600 million until the end of the year through daily auctions of $ 60 million. Market operators indicate that this amount will be insufficient to contain a new series, but they are optimistic on the part of BCRA.