“Luis Caputo expone una comisión bicameral del Congreso. (Foto: Archivo),” Río Negro, 4 Apr. 2018, www.rionegro.com.ar/argentina/caputo-si-hubiera-querido-favorecerme-me-hubiera-quedado-en-el-sector-privado-CK4738567.
On April 4th, Argentina’s Minister of Finance, Luis Caputo, spoke with a tense Argentine Congress about the country’s public debt and addressed his personal involvement in offshore investments. Upon receiving criticism from opposition (Kirchnerist) politicians, who insist that he is operating under a conflict of interest and is thus unfit to hold office, Caputo defended himself by saying that if he had wanted to seek personal gain, he would have stayed in the private sector rather than assume the position of Minister of Finance. Prior to managing Argentina’s finances, Caputo had an extensive involvement in the private sector having worked as head of trading for JP Morgan Argentina, for Deutsche Bank (for East Europe and Latin America), and managed funds for AXIS, a private communications company in Argentina (“Luis Caputo”).
On the subject of offshore investments, Caputo commented that possessing such investments is not a crime when their ownership is not kept secret from the public. He claims that he has never owned any offshore company and assured Congress that all his activities have been recorded with Argentina’s Anti-corruption Office and the Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos (AFIP), a federal body which handles income taxes. Despite his claims, evidence was uncovered last year that Caputo has a stake in the U.S.-registered company, Noctua Partners LLC, and that he did not report his holding in this and other “offshore companies that manage hundreds of millions of dollars in tax havens” on his taxes in 2015 and 2016 (Delfino & Crucianelli ; Bio). Regarding this, Caputo admits that is a fiduciary holder in the company, not an owner, and believes that maintains that he has not committed any crime, demonstrated by his willingness to take the issue to court to obtain proof of the integrity of his practices.
As for Argentina’s debt, Caputo declared that only 30% of it is contracted with the private sector and multilateral organizations and that the overall debt is strong because of their lengthy repayment windows. He also made it very clear that although one of the main goals of the Argentine government is to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor through sustained growth, that it takes time to undo 75 years of mismanagement.
This article comes from Diario Río Negro (Rio Negro Daily), a center-right newspaper with a provincial focus, but that also reports on national news stories such as the one presented in this post. The fact that this new story is potentially revealing corruption within the Macri government shows, to an extent, a transparency of the media. This news story was also reported in other popular news sources in Argentina, such as Clarín and La Nación, that are also center-right and which are believed to support the views of President Macri, further adding to a sense of transparency. This makes sense when considering that although Macri appointed Caputo and is likely informed about Caputo’s dealings with offshore countries, he has also adopted a standpoint of working against corruption and thus allowing such news stories to be reported would be advantageous for his image. Overall, the evidence that this article uses are predominantly quotes from Caputo’s exposition before Congress and neither criticizes or appraises Caputo’s actions outright, leaving it to the audience to make sense of the situation as I have attempted to above.
Works Cited:
Bio, Demian. “SEC: Despite Denying It, Finance Minister Caputo Owned Company That Appeared on ‘Paradise Papers’.” The Bubble, 12 Mar. 2018, www.thebubble.com/sec-caputo-owned-company-paradise-papers/.
“Caputo: ‘Si hubiera querido favorecerme, me hubiera quedado en el sector privado.’” Río Negro, 4 Apr. 2018, www.rionegro.com.ar/argentina/caputo-si-hubiera-querido-favorecerme-me-hubiera-quedado-en-el-sector-privado-CK4738567.
Delfino, Emilia, and Sandra Crucianelli. “Caputo Concealed Cayman Island Offshore Firms from Argentine Authorities.” Buenos Aires Times, Editorial Perfil, 19 Feb. 2018, www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/caputo-concealed-cayman-island-offshore-firms-from-argentine-authorities.phtml.
“Luis Caputo.” Ministry of Finance: Presidency of the Nation, Gobierno Argentina, www.minfinanzas.gob.ar/en/ministry/minister/.