Pending IMF goals

[NewsWhore]

At least five of the goals set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have not been reached by the current administration. The IMF Stand-by arrangement ends on 31 January 2008. Among the issues still pending are the modifications to the Monetary and Finance Law, the lack of rules for financial intermediaries, and the fiscal surplus target for next year. These points are added to the failure to get legislation through Congress aimed at criminalizing electricity theft and the failure to fulfill most of the items on the electricity distributors list of measures aimed at improving collection rates. In documents sent to the IMF in August, the government promised to have the modifications to the Monetary Law approved by 30 October, but the legislation was not sent to Congress until last week. As far as electricity distributors cash flow is concerned, according to Listin Diario, the aim was for the three distributors to achieve a collection rate of 64.9%, but so far the EDEs have reached just 58.5%. The electricity sector was also budgeted to receive a subsidy of US$400 million, but circumstances forced the government to pay out more than US$600 million in subsidies to the sector.

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