The IMF decides to keep its boss

IT TOOKIMFEUIMF 24 days and seven bureaucratic steps to start a business in Beijing, according to the World Bank’s report on the ease of doing business in 2017. But an investigation released last month concluded that the bank’s leaders, including Kristalina Georgieva, its former second-in-command, had pressed staff into doctoring the report to flatter China. The allegations left Ms Georgieva fighting to save her current job as head of the . On October 11th the fund’s board finally decided her fate. The evidence, it said, “did not conclusively demonstrate” that Ms Georgieva “played an improper role”. It had taken almost 26 days and eight meetings for the board to finish its business. But at the end of it all, she could keep her job.Ms Georgieva, a former commissioner, had won the backing of Britain, France, Germany and Italy, the powers that installed her in the first place. The finance ministers of 17 African countries praised her “human touch”, as well as the $30bn the mobilised last year to help the continent in its fight against covid-19. Two former chief economists of the bank (Lord Nicholas Stern and Joe Stiglitz), one of whom has a Nobel prize, also expressed strong support. Mr Stiglitz described the investigation as a “hatchet job”.