Former Vice Minister of Bolivia is arrested for millionaire IMF credit

A deputy minister of the government of the former president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, was arrested for alleged crimes in the arrangement of a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to face the covid pandemic, the Prosecutor’s Office reported on Tuesday.

“Has proceeded [el lunes] to his arrest, because there are enough elements that constitute criminal responsibility against him ”, of the former Deputy Minister of the Treasury, Carlos Schlink, said at a press conference the secretary general of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Bolivia, Edwin Quispe.

Schlink is the first arrested for alleged irregularities in the credit for 327.2 million dollars granted in April 2020 by the IMF to the Áñez government to face the economic problems generated by the pandemic.

The leftist government of Luis Arce returned this credit to the IMF last February and also had to add another 24.3 million dollars, for exchange rate variations and interest and commissions. The return totaled $ 351.5 million.

The Áñez government sent, after contracting the loan, a law to the Parliament of that time for its approval, but this power, controlled by the opposition Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), rejected it.

The MAS, led by former President Evo Morales, argued that the Áñez government had not sent all the required documentation.

In the absence of a law, the resources, which were supposedly intended to mitigate the damage caused by covid-19, were never used.

The IMF, through its spokesman, Gerry Rice, pointed out in June 2020 that credit to support the balance of payments of Bolivia it was “transparent.”

The case of the IMF loan is also part of a package of lawsuits that the Prosecutor’s Office requested at the end of last May against the former president Áñez, detained for three months for an alleged coup against Morales at the end of 2019.