WASHINGTON – International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva yesterday said she is hopeful for an “expeditious resolution” to an investigation that found she manipulated data in favour of China while in a senior role at the World Bank.
The statement comes a day after she spoke to the IMF executive board, which is reviewing last month’s probe by law firm WilmerHale that found during her time as World Bank CEO, Georgieva was among the top officials who pressured staff into changing data to China’s benefit in the 2018 edition of its closely watched Doing Business report.
“I am pleased that I finally had the opportunity to explain to the IMF board my role in the Doing Business report and how I respected the integrity of the report,” said Georgieva in a statement released through a communications firm rather than IMF.
“I look forward to an expeditious resolution of the matter in a way that preserves the core strengths of IMF and the World Bank as strong multilateral institutions that fulfil their important missions during these times of unprecedented crisis.”
She has repeatedly denied the probe report’s conclusions, and yesterday released a letter from her lawyer to the board objecting to WilmerHale’s findings, as well as her 12-page testimony to the 24 board members.
The law firm’s report “does not accurately characterise my actions... nor does it accurately portray my character or the way that I have conducted myself over a long professional career”.
The probe found that Georgieva, along with her associate Simeon Djankov, a former Bulgarian finance minister who created the report, and Jim Yong Kim, then president of the World Bank, pressured staff to change the calculation of China’s ranking to avoid angering Beijing.
The push came while the bank leadership was engaged in sensitive negotiations with Beijing over increasing the institution’s lending capital.
In her testimony, Georgieva denied that she asked Djankov to become involved in the Doing Business report to improve China’s ranking, and that the report was changed to secure Beijing’s backing for the capital increase.
The United States has the largest voting share on the Washington-based crisis lender’s board, and a Treasury spokesman said it “has pushed for a thorough and fair accounting of all the facts”.
“Our primary responsibility is to uphold the integrity of international financial institutions.” – AFP, October 8, 2021
