Jordan News

The results of the investigation into data violations in Doing Business for the years 2018 and 2020, showed that an Arab country entered into contracts with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to change the order of Jordan, which ranked first in the Doing Business report for the year 2020 and to make that country bypass Jordan and become the top of the list.

The report also indicated that the Arab country itself agreed with the World Bank to change the ranking of Jordan, which fell to fourth place instead of third in the 2018 Doing Business report.

And the investigation report, a copy of which was seen by Akhbar Al-Jordan, stated that “in August 2019, the Doing Business team drafted a list of the best improvers of Doing Business 2020, which made Jordan at the top of the reformers list with the occupation of (the Arab state). ) Second place. The following month, September 2019, Mr. Djankov – then director of the Dubai Economic Center – instructed the Doing Business team to find a way to change the data, so that Jordan fell from the top improvers list.

The report also stated, “According to one of the Doing Business directors, Mr. Djankov explained that Jordan at that time was experiencing economic and social pressures, and therefore, the report would not be credible if Jordan was the first reformer.”

To this end, Mr. Djankov first sent a member of the Doing Business team to Jordan to examine whether a subset of the reforms credited to the country were legitimate. When the employee reported that Jordan’s data was indeed correct, the Doing Business team, as directed by Mr. Djankov, focused on looking for ways to boost (the Arab country’s) score over Jordan on the list,” the report showed.

He added, “Mr. Djankov stated in his interview that the impetus for the change in the (Arab country) data came from two senior officials in the Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa region, one of whom previously served as Chief of Staff of President Kim and participated in the changes to China’s data.”

And “In the Doing Business 201811 report on September 30, the Doing Business team changed the (Arab country) data in an effort to boost the country’s ranking behind Jordan. The indicator is reduced to 4 instead of 3, and the time to comply with the newly enacted Value Added Tax (VAT) has been reduced,” according to the report.

The improvement of the ranking of (the Arab country) also led to a similar change in the data of a neighboring country; Because this country had a similar tax system. But this did not affect the overall ranking of the neighboring country, according to the report.

However, the report stated that “we have not identified any evidence that the president’s office or any of the board members were involved in data changes affecting (the Arab country) and (its neighboring country) in the 2020 report.”

Here is the full text of the report: