The $1,000 million debt repurchase that Sergio Massa announced this week, in the midst of the blue dollar escalation, has opened a layer of suspicion about the Economy Minister’s actions that has led the opposition to to argue in Congress than to be informed who have acquired and benefited from the purchase of these bonds.
Against a backdrop of continuing political turmoil, with government lobbying the Supreme Court and piqueteros coming out to control price deals with Truckers, Massa announced $1 billion in bond buybacks, with an open menu targeting stocks, in pesos and dollars, for a shorter term.
But what has attracted the attention of opposition deputies and senators is that the man from Tiger recorded the message with the announcement on Tuesday 17, in the afternoon, but the measure was only released on Wednesday morning before the market opened .
For the Senator of Salta Juan Carlos Romero “It looks like an operation that was planned in advance and from which some sectors could have taken note of the announcement and benefited from it”. For this reason, the dissident Peronist has presented a project through which he asks the Government to explain the reasons for the repurchase of the debt announced by the head of the Palazzo delle Finanze.
Specifically, in his presentation, Romero asks: “What were the reasons for announcing, in advance, that the state would go out to repurchase $1 billion in dollar debt (at market value), a decision communicated in advance via a tweet and before the market reopens? And there, the lawmaker and former governor wonders if the decision to bring forward the announcement of the debt buyback was not the trigger for the bonds increase by more than 11% within the time the provision was formalized.
For the opposition, the minister’s move arouses at least suspicion, given that the bonds are bought for 35 dollars when they could have been bought before for 20, not to mention that the government received a recommendation to buy back those bonds last year when their price was lower.
But Romero is not the only one who wants to know who has acquired and benefited from the purchase of bonds, since a group of representatives of Juntos por el Cambio, led by Fernando Iglesiassubmitted a draft requesting resolution Quote from Sergio Massa explain the measure given the suspicion that there was access to privileged information.
In the proposal, opposition representatives stressed that a day before the announcement there was a jump in the price of global bonds 29 and 30 to which the measure is aimed. For this reason, in the first point of the project they ask the minister to explain the reasons for the repurchase of Argentine bonds that they mature within seven years at a time of maximum scarcity of Central Bank reserves and restrictions on the purchase of dollars to be used in the purchase of inputs.
Furthermore, in Juntos they asked the Government to provide details on the mechanism by which the operation will be carried out and, fundamentally, How will this debt capture be financed?.
In the case of deputies, they ask the government for explanations because a procurement announcement was made instead of proceeding directly with the measure. Please also inform if other cabinet members were aware of the operation beforehand. Obviously lawmakers want to know if there has been any kind of communication to financial operators that could have accelerated the purchase of those securities.
In presenting the project, Iglesias left an ironic message to the ruling party, inviting the deputies of the Frente de Todos who I am against the financial homeland.
Source: Clarin
