A former Minister of Government who was charged and convicted in his native Peru on various accounts of high-level corruption, is now one of the chief advisors to the Turks and Caicos Islands Government (TCIG) on tax and revenue matters.
The man is Jorge Baca Campodonico, who was Minister of Economy during former President Alberto Fujimori’s notoriously corrupt Government in Peru.
Peru’s Supreme Court convicted Baca for misappropriating state funds by diverting US$59.4 million from Government money to bail out a private bank, ordered him to repay US$666,000 to the state and barred him from holding public office for three years.
Campodonico is one of the European Union (EU) team of experts, who is advising government on how to impose and establish the Value Added Tax (TAX) and other revenue measures. He recently addressed a meeting of the Turks and Caicos Islands Chamber of Commerce in Providenciales.
Campodonico, who was arrested by INTERPOL in Argentina in February 2003, while working for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was slapped with a four-year suspended sentence in 2008 for having protected the affidavits of former presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos and for other corrupt matters.
Montesinos was the main collaborator of the Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (1990 – 2000) and is now in jail in Peru for criminal actions against the public administration. Montesinos has also been prosecuted in connection with narco-trafficking, corruption and political assassinations.
The SUN contacted the TCIG for a statement on the matter and they said they did not know of Campodonico’s past criminal record at the time he was hired.
The statement from TCIG said: “TCIG were unaware of Mr Baca’s background; had they been, TCIG would not have considered him suitable for this role. TCIG wish to stress, however, that his analysis was carried out as one member of a team, and that we do not believe the revenue work, which was the result of the whole team’s efforts and which is now complete, to be invalidated. The TCIG view is that the entire team conducted itself in a completely professional and credible manner throughout their period of work in the TCI.”
When he was arrested, Campodonico was part of an IMF technical mission visiting Argentina to examine aspects of a new IMF programme. The IMF and the World Bank had sent a mission to Buenos Aires in order to survey public accounts.
Campodonico’s arrest was regarded as a serious incident and is a blow to the IMF’s credibility, especially to its increasing tendency to lecture borrowing countries about a good governance agenda. Similar concerns and suggestions of double-standards are likely to be raised here in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Baca, as he is popularly known, was accused of having links to the former chief of the Peruvian intelligence services, Vladimiro Montesinos.
The TCIG adviser is an expert on taxation systems and conducted the reform of the Peruvian tax collection department. It is said that the reform has serious irregularities as excluded from control hundreds of politicians and public officials connected with Fujimori’s administration.
In June 2001 a parliamentary investigation concluded Baca had illegally countersigned decrees authorising weapons purchases with revenues from state enterprise privatisations that were intended for poverty reduction.
Baca, was also was prosecuted by the Special Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, for having supported the illegal bailout of Banco Latino in 1998 during the Fujimori administration.
Fujimori is now serving 25 years in prison after he was arrested and tried for a number of crimes related to corruption and human rights abuses that occurred during his government.
It is reported that in 1999 Baca joined the Inter-American Development Bank after leaving the government, and that he was then hired by the IMF in April 2001 to work as an adviser on fiscal issues, for a $10,000 monthly salary.
In September of that year he had to testify in a Peruvian court about his links with former President Fujimori’s spy chief Vladimir Montesinos, who was sentenced to five years in prison for human rights abuses, money laundering, embezzlement and arms deals. Baca was then prohibited to leave the country but fled to the US. In December 2001 he was found guilty of contempt of court. An international warrant was issued on 5 February 2002 and in May 2002 he was arrested in Miami, but extradition efforts failed.
The IMF provided legal assistance to Baca after his arrest in Argentina and expressed “concern”. The judge in charge of the case questioned whether IMF concerns had to do with the fact that “[she had] made effective an international warrant or because they are employing a person wanted by Interpol”.
Baca had a UN passport and the immunity normally granted to IMF staffers, but this only applies to acts performed by employees in their official capacity. The judge said it would be juridical nonsense if “[the IMF] could deny one of its member states the possibility to exercise its rights as a sovereign state on one of its citizens”. Baca was released after a $10,000 bail was paid, but he could not leave the country.
When questioned about whether due diligence was done on Bacca, IMF external relations chief, Tom Dawson, said at a press briefing in Washington: “We do extensive reference checks on individuals when they are hired. It’s not quite clear that he was on any kind of list at the time that he was hired at the Fund”.
Baca says he later informed the Fund that he was a fugitive and that an international warrant had been issued for his arrest. According to Baca the Fund asked the FBI to send agents to Peru to investigate the charges; their assessment was that they were unfounded and that Baca was being persecuted by the new government. Apparently the Fund decided to retain Baca and ignore the international warrant.
Source:TCI SUN
