Argentina declared a “national statistical emergency” on Wednesday, saying it will stop releasing data on the economy until the government statistics agency is overhauled and its numbers can be trusted.
The move is conservative Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s latest assault on the economic policies of his left-wing predecessor, Cristina Fernandez, whose administration he says practiced untoward number-crunching for years.
The Argentine National Statistics and Census Institute (INDEC) will suspend publication of official data on GDP, inflation and poverty, said Jorge Todesca, its new director.
Macri’s government said the problem has become so bad that it amounts to a national emergency.
“INDEC was used to lie scandalously to the nation,” said Argentine Minister of Finance Alfonso Prat Gay, who vowed to “get back the truth.”
Todesca had said two weeks ago that publication of GDP, inflation and poverty statistics would be suspended, but Wednesday’s government decree makes the decision official.
The IMF censured Argentina in 2013 for the large gap between its official economic data and independent estimates.
The country unveiled a new IMF-approved methodology for calculating inflation the following year, but the gap persisted.
Todesca himself came up with numbers that differed wildly from the government is when he was head of a private consulting firm.
For example, he calculated 2014’s inflation at 25 percent, versus the 14.3 percent claimed by INDEC.
Other independent analysts arrived at similar figures.
The government also announced the end of a policy that encouraged Argentines to repatriate overseas savings by offering them real estate and energy bonds.
The policy aimed to shore up plunging foreign exchange reserves, but raised concerns it could be used to launder money and dodge taxes.
Macri, who has vowed to get Argentina’s slumping economy back on track with business-friendly government, has steadily hacked away at Kirchner’s legacy since taking office on Dec. 10.
In his first week, he scrapped the official exchange rate, prompting a sharp devaluation of the peso, as well as axing heavy export taxes.
Separately, an Argentine judge blocked Macri on Wednesday from scrapping a media watchdog aimed at preventing monopolies, the conservative leader’s latest jab at his left-wing predecessor’s policies.
Macri’s chief of staff, Marco Pena, triggered a tumultuous day in the politically loaded world of Argentine media regulation by announcing that Macri had signed a decree creating a new state telecommunications body.
The new body would absorb the existing AFSCA regulator that prevents monopolies by media firms and the AFTIC technology regulator, Pena said.
“We are launching policies for the 21st century. The war against journalism is over,” he told a news conference.
However, later in the day, judge Luis Arias granted an AFSCA official’s request to declare the president’s decree “null and void.”
The judge ordered the government to leave the regulator alone pending the outcome of a federal court challenge against the overhaul.
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