This week’s editorial by leading economist Pedro Silverio touches on the proposed legislation that will support the IMF agreements. Upon reading the legislation, Silverio discovered some surprising information. While the law insists upon the autonomy that must surround the actions taken by the monetary authorities, Article 2 of the proposed law says that an intervention by the monetary authorities can only occur after the President emits a resolution to authorize the intervention. Thus, says the economist, the President – not the monetary authorities – has the last word. Silverio points out the case before the public today, in which the top executives of Bancredito had the warrants for their arrest suspended by the District Attorney at the behest of the President. Silverio says, very cautiously, that a conflict between the President and the authorities pursuing the case is evident. He questions whether the President was even aware of the decision to issue the warrants, concluding that the decision of whether to intervene or not in a banking or financial institution’s operations should not be within the President’s power. That same Article 2 also says that the Finance Minister has the authority to veto any decision to intervene taken by the Monetary Board. Since the in the new Monetary Board, the Minister of Finance will be representing the President, the end result is that in no way will there be any independence of the authorities. Finally, Silverio points out that in Article 17 of the proposal, the officials of the various units of the monetary and financial administration are not personally responsible for any damages they cause when working in good faith. The lead economist at Cenantillas ends by saying that this article seems unnecessary, as good faith is presumed to exist in all public offices and bad faith must be proven. The proposed law, however, also makes officials personally responsible for breaking the law, and this article appears to be putting the cart before the horse, or as said in Spanish, “una cura en salud.”