Bolivia’s Central Bank (BCB) announced yesterday that it was returning the amount of $351.5 million to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), part of what it said was a “usurious” credit contracted in April of 2020 by former “president” Jeanine Anez, who illegally seized power in November of 2019, following the coup that ousted President Evo Morales.
In a Feb. 17 press release, the BCB said that not only was the IMF loan “irregular and onerous,” because of the array of harsh conditionalities attached to it; but it had also cost the state “millions in additional costs” in the amount of $24.3 million, MDZ reported today. Reporting that it was taking such action in “defense of the country’s economic sovereignty, and respect for the State Political Constitution,” the BCB thus said it was returning the above-mentioned sum, and would further pursue appropriate administrative and criminal actions against those current or former public servants involved in negotiating and contracting this usurious loan.
