.. I
would add that what the IMF objected to in FIMACO's operations
extends well beyond the misrepresentation of Russia's international
reserves in mid-1996 and includes several other instances where
transactions through it had resulted in a misleading representation
of the reserves and of monetary and exchange policies. These include
loans to Russian commercial banks and investments in the GKO
market."
No one accepted - or accepts - the IMF's convoluted post-facto
"clarifications" at face value. Nor was Dubinin's tortured sophistry
- IMF funds cease to be IMF funds when they are transferred from the
Ministry of Finance to the central bank - countenanced.
Even the compromised office of the Russian Prosecutor-General urged
Russian officials, as late as July 2000, to re-open the
investigation regarding the diversion of the funds. The IMF
dismissed this sudden burst of rectitude as the rehashing of old
stories. But Western officials - interviews by Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty - begged to differ.
Yuri Skuratov, the former Prosecutor-General, ousted for undue
diligence, wrote in a book he published two years ago, that only c.
$500 million of the $4.8 were ever used to stabilize the ruble. Even
George Bush Jr., when still a presidential candidate accused
Russia's former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of complicity in
embezzling IMF funds.
Pages:
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79