Highly anticipated World Bank audit report is out.

Finding: 9 of 15 staff members on the Doing Business team say management pressured them to manipulate data.

8 complied.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2020/12/16/world-bank-group-statement-on-doing-business-data-corrections-and-findings-of-internal-audit?cid=SHR_SitesShareTT_EN_EXT

(1/n)

This seemingly petty crime -- especially the manipulation of Saudi data -- looks a lot worse in context.

(2/n)

Recall: after the Oct 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, world leaders briefly gave MBS the cold shoulder. US, IMF, and WB reps dropped out of his annual "Davos in the Desert", etc.

(3/n)

But on 10/23/19 Axios reported Steve Mnuchin, Jared Kushner, and World Bank president David Malpass would return to Riyadh for Davos in the Desert 2019.

The boys were back in town! MBS's reformer image was being rehabilitated.

(4/n)

The very next day, 10/24/19, the World Bank published Doing Business 2020 and announced Saudi Arabia was the "top reformer" in the world. Glowing press release, etc. Malpass was coming to Riyadh with a big PR gift for MBS.

Only problem: the data was faked.

(5/n)

The auditors show that after the Doing Business scores were done and had circulated internally, but before final publication, someone changed the Saudi numbers, catapulting Saudi Arabia into the #1 reformer slot.

(6/n)

The crucial question not addressed by auditors, but which I suspect the board is mulling:

"What did the [World Bank] president know, and when did he know it?"

Because if David Malpass's fingerprints are anywhere near this, I'm guessing he'll be unemployed very soon.

(n/n)