Following a complaint about its Bitcoin purchases, El Salvador’s Court of Accounts will investigate President Nayib Bukele’s government.
According to Reuters, El Salvador’s Court of Accounts will investigate a complaint about the government’s purchase of Bitcoin as well as the government’s process for building crypto ATMs.
According to Reuters, the Court of Accounts, which oversees the country’s public spending, received a complaint on September 10 from Cristosal, an El Salvador-based human rights and transparency organization.
“Having admitted the complaint, it will proceed to carry out the legal analysis report and, in a timely manner, forward such report to the General Audit Coordination,” according to the Court of Accounts.
Cristosal requested an audit of the government’s Bitcoin purchases, as well as an examination of how the government funded and carried out the construction of cryptocurrency ATMs in the country.
This is not the first time President Bukele’s Bitcoin project has enraged human rights activists both inside and outside of El Salvador.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin embrace was first announced by President Bukele at this year’s Bitcoin Conference in Miami in June.
Bitcoin was officially recognized as legal tender on September 7. Between those two dates, El Salvador’s embrace of Bitcoin was marred by controversy.
To begin, the country’s Bitcoin legislation requires businesses to accept Bitcoin as payment when it is offered. Article 7 of the Bitcoin Law states that “Every economic agent must accept Bitcoin as payment when offered to him by whoever acquires a good or service,”
This, viewed by many as a coercive law, has resulted in protests, protests, and more protests on El Salvador’s streets in the run-up to September 7.
Furthermore, the government has been accused of intimidating, silencing, and harassing its harshest critics.
“The government has harassed big business and small business alike. They’ve sent government agents to inspect businesses to ensure they are following labor regulations just because C-level executives have said negative things about the Bitcoin law,” a local business person recently told Decrypt under the condition of anonymity.
“The police doesn’t have to take anyone to court. They just scare one of the vocal dissidents [Mario Gomez] with kidnapping him a couple of hours or a couple of days,” a second local business person recently told Decrypt on the condition of anonymity.
