Security Council against the Central Bank. What is primary and what is secondary - truth or money, security or independence
No complaints? There are complaints!
It is not so difficult to list the claims that could be presented to the main credit institution of the country. It would be quite enough for the authors to self-quote extensively, but here we will limit ourselves to only a set of links where the headlines themselves literally scream.
Who will get our money? Ask at the Central Bank!
Central Bank has remained in deep minus
Our world's most central central bank
Who will the Central Bank save: us or who it needs?
In addition, it must be admitted that the Security Council skillfully approached the topic, managing to bypass all the obstacles that were created around the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, thanks to the independence almost constitutionally assigned to it. Is this why there are a lot of new things in the program for analyzing the achievements of the Central Bank, although not surprising for professionals.
Yes, the Security Council does not check; they are only conducting a large-scale analysis of the Central Bank’s activities in 2023. Within the competence of the Security Council - regarding the extent to which the work of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation meets, or rather, corresponds to, the interests of national security.
It’s no secret that the entire financial power of the collective West with the beginning of the Northern Military District was clearly reoriented to support Ukraine. Almost the first blows from sanctions fell on the financial sector of the Russian economy.
It came to the point of disconnecting the Russian Federation from the SWIFT international payment system. Before us, only the DPRK and Iran were disconnected from it, but for them, in a position of almost complete isolation, it was not so scary. Russia was protected in time by the national MIR system and even withstood the blow to Sberbank.
They did not seriously touch only those who were involved in one way or another, and most importantly, needed by the West itself. The contradictions between Russia's national interests and the requirements of the IMF have intensified to the highest degree.
By pouring billions of dollars and euros into supporting the economy of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, we are literally being pushed either to leave or to change our status in this organization. Despite this, ties between the Bank of Russia and the IMF, and also with the American Federal Reserve System, are apparently becoming even tighter under the guise of the need to fight to unblock Russian reserves.
Less lyrics
For all the above circumstances, it is not at all easy to present claims to the leadership of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. First of all, due to his independence, but by no means by chance, the Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation often says at press conferences that this is all poetry, let’s talk about numbers and facts.
But today the figures are no longer in favor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, although it is difficult to envy its current position. Of course, due to the unimaginable expenses for the SVO, which the Central Bank of the Russian Federation cannot contribute to, literally nothing. And this despite the fact that, based on information leaked from the Security Council, one can conclude that the actions of the Central Bank are systemic and comprehensive.
It’s good that he’s not a criminal, otherwise the employees from the Security Service will be tortured by suing the bankers. Nevertheless, the result of the work of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation may be an unbalanced budget. And all just because of “factual and digital” circumstances.
Experts have already described them as unreliable data on foreign exchange earnings, and undermining the financial basis of strategic planning and national projects due to their rise in cost.
Further, no less scary is the loss of stability and predictability in the implementation of parallel imports and import substitution in general. This is a completely separate issue, since purchases abroad cannot be reliably calculated, which is why the very idea of import substitution has already become the talk of the town.
It has been written and said more than once about people from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, and even in almost official sources, that they are “consciously biased” and have a “dubious level of professionalism.” But the “strange”, to put it mildly, reporting of the Central Bank can also be explained by other reasons.
Among other things, the connections of its leadership with those who were and will be for the “free movement of currency.” The Central Bank, which is independent, as you remember, also has obligations to the IMF, according to which the regulator is obliged to adhere to the fund’s standards when implementing monetary policy and maintaining currency stability.
Which of the big people in the Security Council will be the first to say this, I think there is no need to explain - Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev is quite suitable for such a role, especially since his relations with the leadership of our financial departments have never been warm.
Numbers per barrel
Now it is possible on the points that are currently being checked by Security Council employees. The reason for the need for an in-depth analysis was “gross failures in reporting, incompetence and poor validity of decisions made, as well as a large number of errors and unreliable data in forecasts and directions of monetary policy.”
There are already very specific figures - for example, in the parameters of the currency balance for 2023, $9,9 billion (almost a trillion rubles or 3% of federal budget revenues) are confidently listed in the “errors and omissions” column.
The reports of the Central Bank have not yet clarified where such amounts disappeared. This is the digital age, which is already being compared to a concentration camp from which almost 10 billion simply escaped. In addition to what will most likely be lost forever, 300 billion from reserves is sort of the icing on the cake.
Whether the outflow of capital, the right to which the Central Bank of the Russian Federation consistently defends, is to blame for such “losses” and “errors and omissions” is not easy to understand. Obviously, not only that, but also some kind of help is needed from controllers or the famous “currency commissioners”.
The Bank of Russia showed a 2023% balance of payments surplus for 20, but, judging by the same reports, there is simply no money in the accounts. Or is it also 59 aircraft that flew away in an unknown direction?
The data on currency movements also do not work at all, where the October 4,4 billion dollars are no less confidently recorded as fictitious or postscripted. This is out of total export earnings of $37,2 billion in October.
Then there are the little things, like the $1,3 billion in lost revenues from foreign real estate or the decline in the trade surplus from $14,3 billion to $9,4 billion. As a result, the trade balance surplus also fell – from $11,2 billion to $4,9 billion.
The Security Council may not even be asked about such unaccounted-for things as manipulation of the key rate in favor of bankers and engaged exporters. Although they can still ask why the rate was raised and kept with inflation twice or even three times lower.
Nobody wanted to check?
In conclusion, it remains to be recalled that the Bank of Russia, under the leadership of Viktor Gerashchenko and Tatyana Paramonova, did not require any special conditions for itself. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation did not claim any special independence, which means almost complete lack of accountability.
The main bank of the country has been checked more than once by both the Duma members and the Accounts Chamber. When the default occurred, the Central Bank had to report for transactions with dollars and marks even to the generally modest VEC service - currency and export control.
However, the latter was safely scrapped because its powers were too broad, in the opinion of the leadership of financial departments and big business. After which, for many years, the Central Bank lobbied for independence, which the bank finally received under Elvira Nabiullina.
No foreign bank (even the American Federal Reserve System) could even dream of anything like this. An annual audit by Western companies from the “Big Four” does not count; our main bankers have always been able to come to an agreement with them.
Now the desire of the next and most memorable chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, Sergei Stepashin, to go to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation with an inspection has encountered severe resistance. It was possible to check only indirect indicators, although they also turned out to be sensations with a minus sign.
For example, it turned out that investing Russian reserves, which have long been considerable, in American securities and simply in dollars and euros, brought income to the country, as they say, the cat cried. Well, in the crisis year of 2008, we barely managed to save almost a third of our reserve funds invested in the operations of the collapsed agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for the sake of profits, of course.
In 2022, along with the arrest of Russian reserves, unfriendly countries also brought down the ruble exchange rate. It took a direct order from the very top to return the exchange rate to acceptable levels, and this was the first call to the leadership of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
There are big doubts whether he was heard, especially taking into account the games with bets, subsidies under the CBO and inflation. And since the ruble was allowed to fall again, and again the top had to go to manual control, it became clear that the debriefing of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, and along with it the Ministry of Finance, was just around the corner.
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