Analysis: World Bank, IMF face long-term losses after data rigging scandal

WASHINGTON – The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, is credited with altering the World Bank’s data in 2017, regardless of the research reputation of both organizations, say former employees, government officials and outside experts.

The damage to the data-fraud scandal that has forced the World Bank to stop climate-ranking its “doing business” investments can be difficult to repair, and the question of whether influential research by organizations is subject to shareholder influence.

Georgieva vehemently denies allegations in the World Bank’s external investigation report that she applied “unreasonable pressure” on workers, which pushed China’s business climate ranking from 78th to 78th. Support for capital increase.

Higher ranking rankings of influential World Bank publications could mean increasing the inflow of foreign investment funds, boosting countries’ economies and financial markets, as fund managers have built doing business rankings in their analytical models. Current and former bank officials say countries are always pushing for higher rankings.

Georgia blames former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim’s office for bringing about changes outside of the report’s established approach. The first changes identified in the December 2020 review included the removal of metrics for the amount of time it took to open a bank account and receive invoices, reducing the estimated time it takes to start business in Beijing and Shanghai.

“Considering how critical this information is … these allegations are seen as impossible, these allegations are deeply disturbing,” Sensens wrote. Robert Menendez (DN.J.) and James Rich (R-Idaho) have called for “full accountability” in a letter to President Joe Biden.

“It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.

Prominent economists and women leaders are rallying in Georgia’s defense with published opinions and tweets, including former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, who has called the allegations a “coup attempt” at the IMF.

Shanta Devarajan, a former World Bank official who was in charge of the Doing Business report in 2017, said Georgiva never pressured her to change the report. He later told Reuters the changes were made without his advice, but he did not know by whom.

Georgia and Wilmerhall’s lawyer, a law firm appointed by the World Bank’s executive board that produced the investigation report, is scheduled to be interviewed by the IMF’s executive board earlier this week, Reuters reported Sunday.

The trial is adjourned

The chief economists, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have so far refrained from making public decisions on the issue, and the issue did not come up during a meeting of Group of Seven (G-7) finance leaders last week.

A statement from Britain’s finance ministry emphasized the need for “good governance” only in the World Bank.

“We support transparency and are considering releasing the results of an independent investigation into irregularities in the World Bank’s Doing Business report,” a UK finance ministry spokesman said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

A spokesman for the U.S. Treasury said Wilmerhall “has made the inquiries serious and has ensured a full review of the managing director’s role in the Doing Business report by the IMF.”

As law enforcement investigations continue, the controversy could be overshadowed by the October 11-17 annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank.

The scandal has long sparked criticism of the political nature of the Bretton Woods organization, which was founded on July 14 to rebuild a war-torn global economy.

In the decades that followed, the two countries spanned nearly 1 country, with a combined trillion-dollar capacity of more than ট্র 1 trillion, and research indicating government policy choices and hundreds of billions of dollars in annual private sector investment flows that exceed their annual nd.

Timothy Ash, a senior sovereign strategist at Asset Management in Blue, said the allegations suggest that some of these investment streams are based on “compromised, even malicious” business rankings.

Ash wrote in a letter to the Financial Times, “The report is extremely worrying in terms of the damage it has done to the credibility and moral culture and stability of the World Bank and the IMF.”

‘Structural’ crisis

Past leadership debates in organizations often involve inconsistencies between individual leaders.

But Luiz Vera, co-ordinator of the London-based Bretton Woods project, said the World Bank’s information-fraud crisis has gone beyond the actions of some individuals for “deep structural problems” in the governance of both banks and funds. Group

He said it could provide advice based on solid research, relying on the World Bank and the IMF. “It raises the question of whose interests are being served, how strong their analysis is, and how they face geopolitical and shareholder pressure.”

Former bank officials say they are not surprised.

Harry Broadman, managing director of Berkeley Research Group, who worked at the World Bank from 1994-2008, said he warned of the risk of manipulation when setting the precedent for the Doing Business report in the 1990s. However, he said these problems do not necessarily spread to other bank studies.

“It would be unreasonable to think that the big, big shareholders who sit on the board, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the Germans and many more, don’t have too much influence,” Bradman said. “Surprisingly, the management of the organization will consider changing some of the issues on the basis of which someone is opposing them on the way out.”

By Andrea Shalal and David Lauder

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