Milei nominates Santiago Bausili as president of the Central Bank

The elected president of Argentina, Javier Milei, nominated Santiago Bausili to assume the presidency of the Central Bank of Argentina.

The appointment, which needs to be approved by the Argentine Senate, took place despite Milei’s electoral promise to close the country’s monetary institution. The announcement was made by the libertarian’s office in a statement published on Wednesday (Dec 6, 2023). Here is the full text (PDF – 101 kB, in Spanish).

Bausili has a degree in economics from the University of San Andrés and served as Undersecretary of Finance from 2016 to 2017, during the presidency of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), and then assumed the role of Secretary of Finance until December 2019. He specializes in capital market financing and financial risk management.

In the private sector, the economist is a partner of Luis Caputo, future Argentine Economy Minister, at the consultancy Anker Latam. He also worked for more than 10 years at the company JPMorgan and at Deutsche Bank in New York for 9 years.

According to the Clarion, Bausili was sued in 2021 for allegedly benefiting Deutsche Bank in a foreign debt negotiation. However, the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires annulled the judicial process on Tuesday (Dec 5).

OTHER ADVERTISEMENTS

Also on Wednesday (Dec 6), Milei’s office confirmed that Daniel Tillard and Darío Wasserman will assume, respectively, the presidency and vice-presidency of the BNA (National Bank of Argentina). Furthermore, Belén Stettler will be the new Communications Secretary of the president-elect’s government.

In another statement (full – PDF – 87 kB, in Spanish), the office stated that Marco Lavagna will continue to command Indec (National Institute of Statistics and Census). The public body is responsible for publishing Argentina’s economic and social data, such as inflation, unemployment rate and population.

MILEI GOVERNMENT

The elected president plans to reduce the number of ministries in Argentina from 18 to 8. The text with the changes planned for his mandate must be delivered to the country’s Congress on Monday (Dec 11).

Milei has already announced all the names that will command the bodies from December 10th, the day the new Argentine government takes office.

They are: Guillermo Ferraro (Infrastructure), Mariano Cúneo Libarona (Justice), Diana Mondino (Foreign Relations), Sandra Pettovello (Human Capital), Guillermo Francos (Interior) Patricia Bullrich (Security), Luis Caputo (Economy) and Luis Petri ( Defense).