"A Critical Analysis of the Central Bank's Activities in 2023: Threats to National Security and Economic Stability"
1. The Security Council is conducting a comprehensive analysis of the Central Bank's activities in 2023 to assess their compliance with national security interests. The reasons for this action include gross reporting failures, incompetence, and weak justifications for decisions made, as well as a significant number of errors and unreliable data in forecasts and directions of monetary policy.
2. In particular, in the parameters of the currency balance for 2023, the Central Bank could not account for the disappearance of $9.9 billion (almost three trillion rubles or 3% of federal budget revenues), placing this amount under "errors and omissions," which, in the era of digitalization and online tracking of financial resources, appears to be an unacceptable anachronism. A "hole" of this magnitude has no precedents and, according to experts' assessments, could have been formed due to shadowy criminal capital outflows, possibly with the complicity of controlling authorities, as has repeatedly happened in the past. Either 20% of the surplus in the balance of payments turned out to be fictitious or was diverted in an unknown direction.
3. Previously, the regulator also distorted data on currency movement, resulting in $4.4 billion out of $37.2 billion of export revenues in October being recognized as fictitious or misallocations. Additionally, the Central Bank was forced to exclude $1.3 billion of foreign asset inflows as erroneous. As a result, the positive trade balance shrank from $14.3 billion to $9.4 billion. And the surplus of the trade balance, which takes into account all, not just trade transactions, decreased from $11.2 billion to $4.9 billion.
4. The Central Bank manipulates the key rate (KR) as a political instrument, exerting pressure on the executive branch in its own interests and in favor of affiliated speculative and currency supra-national groups. This assumption is confirmed by the facts when the KR was raised regardless of inflation dynamics but in response to government actions contradicting the regulator's position. The latest such case was recorded in 2023 when, in the February forecast, the Central Bank, anticipating (almost accurately this time) an inflation rate of 5-7% by the end of 2023, tied the KR to it not exceeding 9.2%. However, after the government tightened foreign exchange regulations, ignoring the Bank's objections, the KR skyrocketed to 16%.
5. The totality of these facts allows us to conclude that the Central Bank's actions are systemic and comprehensive, posing a threat of budget imbalance due to unreliable data on currency inflows, undermining the financial basis of strategic planning and national projects through their cost increases, and loss of stability and predictability in implementing parallel imports and overall import substitution, as purchases abroad cannot be reliably tracked and other highly destructive phenomena for the domestic economy. The deliberate engagement of the Central Bank can be explained not only by subjective circumstances — the level of professionalism and ties to beneficiaries of "free movement of currency." But also its legal obligations to the IMF, according to which the regulator must adhere to the Fund's standards, conducting monetary policy and supporting currency stability. With the onset of the Special Operations Forces to the highest degree, contradictions between Russia's national interests and the IMF's requirements have escalated, as the Fund provides support to Ukraine's economy and Armed Forces for tens of billions of dollars, which makes it necessary to change the RF's status in this organization.
Tags:
#CentralBank #MonetaryPolicy #NationalSecurity #EconomicAnalysis #FinancialRegulation #IMF #CurrencyManipulation #BudgetImbalance #ShadowCapitalFlows #Inflation #CurrencyStability #SpecialOperationsForces #GovernmentRegulation #regulatorycompliance
