National Assembly calls for impeachment of Superintendent of Banks, Ruth Arregui, for breach of duties

The Superintendent of Banks, Ruth Arregui, will be called to impeachment in the next five days, once the National Assembly rejected the majority report of the Supervisory Commission that recommended the file, due to insufficient motivation and evidence.

The motion to not accept the file report and to call the highest authority of the Superintendence of Banks for impeachment was presented by the questioning legislator, Darwin Pereira, of the Pachakutik caucus.

The motion received 91 votes that came from the Union for Hope (UNES), Pachakutik, Democratic Left (ID) and some independents. With this, the president of the National Assembly, Guadalupe Llori, has a maximum period of five days to incorporate the issue on the agenda of the plenary session.

While the motion presented by the president of the Control Commission, Fernando Villavicencio, to accept the recommendation to file, received 35 votes.

UNES, Pachakutik and independents close ranks to impeach the Superintendent of Banks, Ruth Arregui

Villavicencio warned that the processing of this trial will end in a dilemma, between those who are with the bank and those who are with the people, since he said that this trial is not against the bank or against the financial system, but rather tries to determine responsibilities for breach of duties of the superintendent.

That she comes to the plenary session will be the best forum for the official to replicate the accusations against her, Villavicencio said after defending the report prepared by the commission she presides over, and sentenced: “They can have the votes, it is easy and they are even bought, but never they will have the decorum.”

Addressing the plenary session, he stated: “We do not visit the Superintendency of Banks, in the logs and videos there are those who visited the Superintendent of Banks.”

The vice president of the Oversight Commission, Ana Belén Cordero (CREO), stressed that the filing of the request for impeachment was recommended for not being able to verify with evidence the potential breaches of functions that the official would have incurred.

Darwin Pereira, from the Pachakutik bloc, proponent of the interpellation before the plenary, motioned not to accept the report of the Oversight Commission, on the substantiation of impeachment against Ruth Arregui Solano, Superintendent of Banks, which recommends its filing; and, on the contrary, call the official for impeachment.

He argued that behind this trial are thousands of Ecuadorian families who have suffered the pain of banking abuses and that through an investigation that began in June 2021, painful stories have been discovered, entire families who remained on the street, who they charged them interest on interest, which charged values ​​not allowed by law. In addition, it was discovered that funds from the Superintendence of Banks were wasted and paid without going through the public contracting system.

There are eight accusations that Pereira presented for this process and refer to irregularities in the appointment of customer advocates in financial institutions, payments debited in private banks, lack of control and surveillance of the activities of the financial system, computer fraud, lack of control in the illegal collection of money as in the case of Big Money, debt renegotiation between users and private banks, among others.

María Gabriela Molina (UNES) questioned the report approved by a majority of the Oversight Commission to file the trial and said that it is the second time that the criteria of her bench are not considered in the reports.

The file is contrary to the sentiment of Ecuadorians who day by day receive abuse from the bank, and in the face of this, the Superintendence of Banks does not exercise control in cases of computer fraud that have not yet returned the money stolen, the money due for procedures collection charges determined by collection actions, he noted.

Pachakutik’s representative Ricardo Vanegas made a presentation in plenary and spoke of the existence of aggravating circumstances in the official’s actions and referred to the lack of control in the Isspol case, which caused the embezzlement of $900 million. In addition, he blamed the official for the fact that Ecuador does not know that there are $600 million in non-performing loans, of which $418 million are from the National Financial Corporation, $41 million from Banco del Pacífico and $141 million from BAN Ecuador. What is the management of preventive collection or the negotiation of collection? Asked the legislator. He announced that in the process he will expose other irregularities detected in the Arregui Solano administration. (I)