entitled it to 0.06 percent of the managed funds per quarter.
Even accepting the central banker's ludicrous insistence that the
balance never exceeded $1.4 billion - FIMACO would have earned $3.5
million per annum from management fees alone - investment profits
and brokerage fees notwithstanding. Even Eurobank's president at the
time, Andrei Movchan, conceded that FIMACO earned $1.7 million in
management fees.
The IMF insisted that the PwC reports exonerated all the
participants. It is, therefore, surprising and alarming to find that
the online copies of these documents, previously made available on
the IMF's Web site, were "Removed September 30, 1999 at the request
of PricewaterhouseCoopers".
The cover of the main report carried a disclaimer that it was based
on procedures dictated by the central bank and "... consequently, we
(PwC) make no representation regarding the sufficiency of the
procedures described below ... The report is based solely on
financial and other information provided by, and discussions with,
the persons set out in the report. The accuracy and completeness of
the information on which the report is based is the sole
responsibility of those persons. ... PricewaterhouseCoopers have not
carried out any verification work which may be construed to
represent audit procedures ... We have not been provided access to
Ost West Handelsbank (the recipient of a large part of the $4.8 IMF
tranche)"
The scandal may have hastened the untimely departure of the IMF's
Managing Director at the time, Michel Camdessus, though this was
never officially acknowledged. The US Congress was reluctant to
augment the Fund's resources in view of its controversial handling
of the Asian and Russian crises and contagion.
This reluctance persisted well into the new millennium. A
congressional delegation, headed by James Leach (R, Iowa), Chairman
of the Banking and Financial Services Committee, visited Russia in
April 2000, accompanied by the FBI, to investigate the persistent
contentions about the misappropriation of IMF funds.
Camdessus himself went out of his way to defend his record and
reacted in an unprecedented manner to the allegations. In a letter
to Le Mond, dated August 18, 1999 - and still posted on the IMF's
Web site, three years later - he wrote, inadvertently admitting to
serious mismanagement:
"I wish to express my indignation at the false statements,
allegations, and insinuations contained in the articles and
editorial commentary appearing in Le Monde on August 6, 8, and 9 on
the content of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) audit report
relating to the operations of the Central Bank of Russia and its
subsidiary, FIMACO.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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