The good rating of Atlántico for financial management - Barranquilla - Colombia

“Being in AAA reduces the cost of debt, pay less interest, and there is more money left for investments,” he explains. the governor of the Atlantic, Elsa Noguerawhen celebrating that for the second consecutive year the firm Fitch Ratings awarded the AAA rating to the department of Atlántico, the highest rating in its history.

(Also: Barranquilla: alias ‘El Satánico’ is still free)

Noguera assures that this good news will allow the administration to have better banking conditions and will facilitate the resources allocated to social investment.

“We can get into longer-term debt and increase the interest of the financial sector in lending us,” the governor added.

AAA ratingis the maximum granted by Fitch Ratings and is assigned to entities with the lowest risk expectation in relation to all others in the same country.

(Read: The real estate project that will be built at the foot of the river in Barranquilla)

Among the key factors to achieve this rating for the second consecutive year is the reduction in dependence on operating income, and the 17.9 percent increase in the department’s own income during 2021.

Thanks to the expansion of points in the collection network, citizen trust and the possibilities of making the payment virtually

“Thanks to the expansion of points in the collection network, the citizen trust and the possibilities of making the payment virtually”, explained Noguera.

During the report, the qualifier highlighted the financial management of the University ESE, since the department had to reorganize the health provision model due to the fact that it presented deficiencies in the operation, for which it assumed the restructuring of liabilities of four hospitals of the public hospital network and constituted the ESE Universityan entity that brings together the current departmental hospital centers.

(Be sure to read: This is how the bridge construction project is going on the Barranquilla-Ciénaga road)

In the latest ratings, a trend has been marked in the good management of departmental finances, as it went from A+ in 2016, then in 2017, 2018 and 2019 to AA-, and in 2020 it reached AA+, which confirms the good moment that the Atlantic is experiencing for the second consecutive year during 2021 and 2022.

BARRANQUILLA

Read more news from Colombia here

Nuclear submarine in Cartagena: USA and Colombia in military exercises

Mining tragedies in the country during 2022 leave 36 dead

Hundreds of Colombians marched against abortion

Trump Financial Statements Aren't Reliable

New York — 

The accounting firm that prepared former President Donald Trump’s annual financial statements says the documents, used to secure lucrative loans and burnish Trump’s image as a wealthy businessman, “should no longer be relied upon” after New York’s attorney general said they regularly misstated the value of assets.

In a letter to the Trump Organization’s lawyer February 9, Mazars USA LLP advised the company to inform anyone who had gotten the documents not to use them when assessing the financial health of the company and the ex-president. The firm also said it was cutting ties with Trump, its highest-profile client.

Mazars’ letter, made public in a court filing Monday, came just weeks after New York Attorney General Letitia James said her civil investigation uncovered evidence that Trump and his company used “fraudulent or misleading” valuations of its golf clubs, skyscrapers and other properties to get loans and tax benefits.

“While we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based upon the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate,” Mazars General Counsel William J. Kelly wrote to his Trump Organization counterpart, Alan Garten.

Kelly told Garten that Mazars could no longer work with Trump because of a conflict of interest and urged him to find another tax preparer. Kelly said several Trump-related tax returns still needed to be finished, including those of the former president and first lady.

The Trump Organization said in a statement it was “disappointed that Mazars has chosen to part ways,” but took Kelly’s letter as a positive because the accounting firm hadn’t found material discrepancies in Trump’s financial statements.

The letter “confirms that after conducting a subsequent review of all prior statements of financial condition, Mazars’ work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies,” the Trump Organization said. “This confirmation effectively renders the investigations by the DA and AG moot.”

Kelly said Mazars performed its work on Trump’s financial statements “in accordance with professional standards” but that it could no longer stand by the documents in light of James’ findings and its own investigation. Kelly said Mazars’ conclusions applied to Trump’s 2011-2020 financial statements. Another firm handled Trump’s 2021 financial statement.

James’ office included a copy of Kelly’s letter in a court filing as she seeks to enforce a subpoena to have Trump and his two eldest children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, testify under oath. A state court judge, Arthur Engoron, is scheduled to hear arguments Thursday in the subpoena dispute.

James, a Democrat, said Monday that given the evidence, “there should be no doubt that this is a lawful investigation and that we have legitimate reason” to question Trump, a Republican, and his children, both of whom have been Trump Organization executives.

Trump’s lawyers have argued that any testimony they give could be used against them in a parallel criminal investigation being overseen by the Manhattan district attorney’s office — a probe that led to tax fraud charges last year against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, its longtime chief financial officer.

Trump has given his Statement of Financial Condition — a yearly snapshot of his holdings — to banks to secure hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of loans on properties such as a Wall Street office building and a Florida golf course, and to financial magazines to justify his place among the world’s billionaires.

In a court filing last month, James’ office detailed several instances in which Trump misstated the value of assets on financial statements given to banks.

Deutsche Bank accepted Trump’s financial statements without objection in a deal for $300 million in loans for three of his properties and, in internal memoranda, emphasized Trump’s reported financial strength as a factor in lending to him, James’ office said.

Another bank said it received financial statements in 2014 stating Trump had a net worth of $5.8 billion and liquidity of $302 million. A bank official involved in that deal told James’ office that if he were aware of misstatements on Trump’s statement of financial condition, he would have killed the deal.

James’ office said its investigation started after Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, told Congress in 2019 that Trump had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits.

Cohen gave copies of three of Trump’s financial statements to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Cohen said Trump gave the statements to Deutsche Bank to inquire about a loan to buy the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and to Forbes magazine to substantiate his claim to a spot on its list of the world’s wealthiest people.

Cohen served time in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to tax crimes, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations, some of which involved his role in orchestrating payments to two women to keep them from talking about alleged affairs with Trump.

Trump’s lawyers have portrayed Cohen as having a vendetta against Trump and said in a recent court filing that it “stretches all credibility to believe that” James’ office put “any legitimate stock” in his testimony.

James’ office responded Monday that not only did it rely on Cohen’s testimony, but that his testimony is “vindicated by the evidence obtained to date and Mazars’s notification that those statements should not be relied upon.”

China’s Financial Diplomacy Wins Influence in Central Asian Countries

WASHINGTON — 

This year marks the 30th anniversary of China having established diplomatic ties with five central Asian countries. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan gained independence.

Three decades later, in the first week of January 2022, President Xi Jinping exchanged congratulatory messages with the presidents of the five states.

China’s influence in Central Asia has grown exponentially in recent decades as the five nations seek Chinese financing for everything from infrastructure projects to educational endeavors, according to Samantha Custer, director of policy analysis at AidData, a research lab at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

She told VOA the main goal of Chinese financial diplomacy in the region is to gain “access to energy supplies and strategic positioning for transit routes.”

Custer said the five countries are of interest to Beijing for two main reasons: First, they offer access to ready supplies of energy via oil, natural gas, or hydropower; and secondly, potential Belt and Road initiative trade routes from China to Europe and the Middle East run through them.

“In keeping with this strategy, most of China’s financial diplomacy has been focused on the energy and transportation sectors,” Custer said.

Last month, in a new report titled Corridors of Power, Custer and her coauthors analyzed how China used massive financial assistance to win friends and allies across Central and South Asia.

According to the report, the Chinese government directed $127 billion in financial assistance across 13 countries in Central and South Asia over nearly two decades. The five countries in Central Asia are among the biggest recipients of Beijing’s financial assistance.

“Kazakhstan alone attracted 26% ($33 billion) of Beijing’s financial assistance dollars,” Custer said, adding these investments were heavily focused on the China-Central Asia Gas Pipeline. “Turkmenistan was the second-largest Central Asian recipient of Chinese financing, worth $9 billion.”

Soft power investments

Even as Beijing emphasizes economics over soft power in Central Asia, it recognizes that these tools are most formidable when employed in concert, according to Custer.

“In this vein, Chinese leaders doubled down on soft power overtures via education, culture, exchange and media to foster people-to-people ties with Central Asian students and professionals over the last two decades,” Custer said, adding these efforts are important avenues to cultivate future markets for Chinese goods, services and capital in Central Asia.

In its bid to become a premier study-abroad destination for students from Central Asia, China offers less burdensome visa requirements than its competitors and financial assistance for education, according to the report.

“Kazakh and Kyrgyz students were top recipients of Chinese state-backed scholarships, and both countries received a large share of Beijing’s language and cultural promotion efforts in the form of Confucius Institutes at the university level and Confucius Classrooms at the primary and secondary school level,” Custer said.

Chinese leaders have also practiced city-level diplomacy to cultivate relationships with public and private sector leaders at the local level, according to the report.

“As a case in point: Turkmenistan’s Mary province received more money from Beijing over two decades than seven of the 13 countries in South and Central Asia,” Custer said. “Kazakhstan’s Atyrau, which received $5 billion, was the second-largest district-level recipient of Chinese state-backed financing in the entire region.”

Investing in security

China has also been investing in security in Central Asia, according to Emil Avdaliani, director of Middle East Studies at the Georgian think tank Geocase.

“Before, Russia was seen as the only and irreplaceable security provider,” Avdaliani said. “China has also penetrated the region. It operates a military base in Tajikistan, funds a new semi-military one there and has increased the number of drills with separate states in the region.”

Avdaliani said that even though China’s position in central Asian countries has evolved quite successfully, China still faces obstacles such as nationalism in the Central Asian states and political elites’ distrust of Beijing.

But the elite also sees that “the five states need China. They need investment, and in the longer run, they need China as a balancer against Russia,” Avdaliani told VOA in an email.

Beijing successfully uses this opportunity, and it is likely to continue in the future, he said.