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.
Your readers will be shocked to learn that the report in question,
requested and made public at the initiative of the IMF ...
(concludes that) no misuse of funds has been proven, and the report
does not criticize the IMF's behavior ... I would also point out
that your representation of the IMF's knowledge and actions is
misleading. We did know that part of the reserves of the Central
Bank of Russia was held in foreign subsidiaries, which is not an
illegal practice; however, we did not learn of FIMACO's activities
until this year--because the audit reports for 1993 and 1994 were
not provided to us by the Central Bank of Russia.
The IMF, when apprised of the possible range of FIMACO activities,
informed the Russian authorities that it would not resume lending to
Russia until a report on these activities was available for review
by the IMF and corrective actions had been agreed as needed .
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