Did the World Bank and the IMF use false statistics to build their economic success story in Egypt?
17 January 2008
A report issued by the Egyptian Central Auditing Organization accuses the Egyptian government of using misleading financial statistics.
The Egyptian Central Auditing Organization, a prestigious public watchdog organization reporting to the Egyptian People’s Assembly, issued its report on the government's economic performance in 2007. The report reveals the inconsistency in the figures for economic indicators used by the different government agencies. It points to a much higher debt-to-revenue rate than reported by the government, a growing public deficit and a flagrant contradiction in the unemployment and inflation rate. The report also indicates contradictions between the numbers reported by the Egyptian Central Bank and the numbers reported by the Egyptian Government to the representatives of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The report was discussed in a series of heated hearings in the People's Assembly, which were attended by a number of ministers in the government. Representatives from opposition groups submitted an official request that the Attorney General investigate the facts in this report.
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