22:18 27 September 2021
Serious accusations against the head of the IMF
Perhaps Kristalina Georgieva should step down as head of the International Monetary Fund. British weekly The Economist has published an article "Why the head of the IMF should resign". Why so dramatically? A new investigation found that IMF employees did not quite honestly compile the prestigious Doing Business rankings, which ranked countries in terms of the ease of doing business. It was about overestimating the position of China and three other countries.
These rankings influence the business decisions of the major players in the market, and such a scandal hits hard on the credibility of the IMF.
According to the investigation, "adjustments" to China's position were carried out on the orders of the then president of the IMF, Jim Yong Kim, and his deputy, Kristalina Georgieva, who now heads the IMF.
In a statement, Ms. Georgieva has said she disagrees “fundamentally” with the findings and interpretation. In a meeting with IMF staff, she said she only asked bank researchers to triple-check the data. But the investigators found that she and the team explored a change in the bank's method (i.e., including only one city per country) to engineer a better result. And, according to the bank's own review, the tweaks that were finally implemented introduced errors rather than removing them.
