The newly appointed president of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), Gisela Sánchez, was emphatic: her management is based on transparency and the fight once morest corruption. She even advances that she has already ordered an investigation spanning ten years or more to verify what was done wrong at the bank.
The above was part of his responses to an interview with the Regional Editorial Media, in which he also declared that “El Salvador and Nicaragua have already exceeded the limits of the credits they can receive, apart from the fact that support for these countries must be stopped to achieve a more diversified and balanced portfolio.”
Strong questions
During the aforementioned interview, reference was made to “The Bank of Dictators”, an investigation that would have revealed “how the bank created to bring development to the region became a petty cash box for the regimes in power, promoted corruption and projects hydroelectric projects that generated exclusion and violence for vulnerable populations.”
The bank’s participation in the Odebrecht case in Guatemala would also have been evidenced.
To the question from the Regional Editorial Team: We call CABEI the Bank of Dictators for supporting governments with a strong disdain for democratic strengthening above the rest of the countries. We talk regarding Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras in the era of Juan Orlando Hernández. Do you agree with the accusations towards the bank? Sánchez responds: “More than agreeing or disagreeing, I must focus on the present and the future. And I do have a very critical reading of the things we have been doing backwards, with the spirit of being able to improve and strengthen them. It is a fact that we currently have a higher level of portfolio concentration, with El Salvador and Nicaragua being the countries that receive the most funds.
My goal is for us to have a more diversified portfolio. Beyond being able to give explanations, because for that I believe that the former president of the bank might explain the reasons why this concentration of the portfolio occurred, I do have a commitment to seek greater diversification.”
Then he explained that in the loan portfolio we have a concentration a little over 25% in El Salvador, followed by Nicaragua (22%); a third place Honduras (with 17%); then Costa Rica (with 10%) and Guatemala (with 5%).
“These are the data at the end of 2023. And then, in non-Central American countries, we have Argentina with 5.8%, the Dominican Republic (5.6%); Panama (4.6%); Colombia (2.4%) and then Belize with 0.1%,” Sánchez lists.
He concludes the topic by indicating that his objective is to protect the exposure limits per country, diversify the portfolio, make the bank’s expenses more efficient and be able to transfer the benefits to the countries that the bank serves.
“We have a policy of two limits: a soft one and a hard one that should not be crossed, as well as an action plan to return to those limits and ensure the diversification of the portfolio.”
Immediate dismissal
Gisela Sánchez also stated that one of the first decisions of her administration was to remove from her position as advisor to the country director of Guatemala, Ana Marcela Giammattei, daughter of former president Alejandro Giammattei, who had a salary of US$5 thousand (as revealed by the media Vox Populi).
“CABEI removed her from her position following the (United States) State Department decreed, on January 17, that her father is ineligible to enter the United States due to his participation in significant corruption. The sanction also declares her ineligible to enter the North American country.”
Rennie Valladares Alcerro, head of the bank’s Integrity and Compliance Office, complements the information, explaining that “it is a case that responds to a guideline that the bank unanimously adopted by the board of directors: a new money laundering policy that includes a section of international sanctions. What this policy calls for is isolating the risks of people who have been sanctioned or mentioned by sanctioning bodies.
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