The World Bank has “paused” the publication of Doing Business Report, which carries the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Rankings. 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.”
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.
Source: Hindustan Times
