World Bank report on hold over data fudging concerns

NEW DELHI: The World Bank has put on hold the publication of its ‘Doing Business Report’, which carries the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Rankings, over alleged irregularities in the underlying data, the Bank said in a statement.

The effective suspension of the publication of the rankings has been announced in the wake of a number of reported irregularities regarding changes to data in the 2018 and 2020 reports published in October 2017 and October 2019. In a statement on Thursday, the Bank said it was conducting a “systematic review and assessment of data changes that occurred subsequent to the institutional data review process for the last five Doing Business reports”.

“We have asked the World Bank Group’s independent Internal Audit function to perform an audit of the processes for data collection and review for Doing Business and the controls to safeguard data integrity,” it added.

The culmination of this process will be followed by a retrospective correction in the rankings, the statement said. “The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank has been briefed on the situation as have the authorities of the countries that were most affected by the data irregularities.”

The Union ministries of finance and commerce did not respond to email queries on the effective suspension of the rankings. But officials from the two ministries, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Bank may have briefly paused the publication but not ended it, and a review would make it more robust and credible. They added this would neither halt nor deter India’s commitment towards Ease of Doing Business. In fact, India has gone a step further in striving to achieve Ease of Living, the officials said.

“For example, just see reforms in tax administration. The Prime Minister recently unveiled faceless assessment system in the income-tax matters to curb corruption and released, for the first time, a taxpayers’ charter. Next month, faceless appeal system will be introduced. All these are part of reform aimed at Ease of Living for common man, which will also benefit businesses.”