The World Bank has announced that it is halting the publication of the 'Doing Business' report as irregularities have been reported in the changes to the data published in October 2017 and 2019. The report has been in existence for 17 years.
The report is controversial, and affects a country’s business prospects. It’s based on ten factors: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
In a statement, the World Bank Group said it has asked its independent Internal Audit function to perform an audit of the processes for data collection and review for 'Doing Business' and the control to safeguard data integrity.
“We are 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,” it said.
"A number of irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data in the 'Doing Business' 2018 and 2020 reports published in October 2017 and 2019. The changes in the data were inconsistent with the 'Doing Business' methodology," it added.
Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that the data of four countries — China, Azerbaijan, UAE and Saudi Arabia — were found to be altered. The WSJ report said that China, Azerbaijan and UAE’s rankings all rose significantly, and Saudi’s dropped.
The World Bank said that will act based on the findings and retrospectively correct the data of countries that were most affected by the irregularities.
The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank has been briefed about the situation as have the authorities of the countries that were most affected by the data irregularities.
"The publication of the 'Doing Business' report will be paused as we conduct our assessment," the statement added.
India was among the countries which witnessed the "most notable improvement" as per the 'Doing Business' 2020 report released in October 2019 with 63rd rank in the ease of doing business.
This isn’t the first time that the rankings have been called into question. In 2018, World Bank chief economist Paul Romer reportedly stepped down after saying that Chile’s rankings under President Michelle Bachelet could have been deliberately skewed.