An Augean stable

GOVERNMENT bean-counters do not, in most countries, have a reputation for derring-do. But in Argentina some have proved to be martyrs and heroes. Statisticians whose findings displeased Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the country’s president from 2007 to 2015, were sacked and then prosecuted for their effrontery. “Teams were decimated,” says Jorge Todesca, who has been appointed by the new president, Mauricio Macri, to clean up and repair the government’s statistics institute (INDEC). If they were not fired, independent-minded statisticians “just resigned and left”, or were banished to back rooms without equipment. In 2011 Mr Todesca’s economic-consulting firm was fined 500,000 pesos ($123,000) for publishing an inflation index that contradicted the one put out by INDEC.