IMF Chief called out for altering WB report to lift China rankings
Kristalina Georgieva risks seeing her authority as head of the International Monetary Fund undermined just weeks before an annual meeting of global finance chiefs, after being accused of influencing a report in China’s favor when she worked at the World Bank.
Georgieva on Thursday said that she “fundamentally” disagreed with the finding -- by an outside law firm engaged by the World Bank -- that she had applied pressure on the bank’s staff to boost China’s ranking in an economic report. She informed the IMF board of the allegations on Thursday and will be addressing the fund’s staff Friday, according to people familiar with the matter.
The substance of the charge -- putting “undue pressure” on World Bank staff to adjust the rating in the “Doing Business” report when she served as chief executive officer -- was the latest in a series of scandals that have plagued the troubled report in recent years. So beleaguered, subjective and controversial is the methodology for the report, which measures the ease and transparency of operating in an economy, that the World Bank announced it will stop producing it.
But for Georgieva, 68, the scrutiny may only be starting.
The ranking that she is accused of pressuring staff to improve is that of China, a magnet for criticism in Washington over everything from trade to geopolitics. The U.S. Treasury sees the accusations as serious and is “analyzing the report,” the department said; the US holds veto power over IMF and World Bank decisions. Republican lawmakers could use the issue to renew criticism of an expansion in IMF resources under Georgieva’s leadership.
Justin Sandefur, a senior fellow and World Bank watcher at the Center for Global Development, a think-tank, said the report could end up affecting her relationship with the IMF members.