By Toby McIntosh
The International Monetary Fund’s efforts to improve national transparency concerning Covid-19 spending have met with mixed success, according to two evaluations by civil society groups.
A gap between promises and fulfillment was notable with regard to the IMF’s beneficial ownership initiative. The IMF ask governments receiving IMF Covid-19 funds to commit to disclosing the names of companies winning contracts and the names of their “beneficial owners.”
The beneficial ownership commitment was seen as a significant not only to monitor emergency pandemic spending, but also to advance a longer-range goal of greater corporate transparency.
However, a study of 11 governments by the Open Contracting Partnership and Open Ownership found that despite some progress, “few governments” responded adequately and that “the quality and detail of the data disclosed is often limited.”
Similarly, an analysis by Transparency International and Human Rights Watch of Cameroon, Ecuador, Egypt and Nigeria “found mixed results in meeting the IMF’s transparency commitments.”
Despite some improvements, “… the amount, accessibility, and quality of the disclosed information varied widely and was inadequate for meaningful oversight for any of the four countries,” according to the TI/HRW assessment.
Results Seen as Lacking
The IMF’s focus was beneficial ownership was lauded as push in the right direction, but the results were seen as disappointing.
In the four countries studied by TI and HRW, “finding published information was difficult.” The report elaborated:
For example, Egypt’s procurement website is not accessible outside the country, even using VPN servers. Cameroon published a list of companies that were awarded government contracts and some beneficial ownership information, but the only link to the document accessible online is on page 47 of an IMF report, not on any government site. And the documents Ecuador published are scattered across three government websites, and not necessarily available.
The TI/HRW report concluded:
In almost all cases, there was not sufficient identifying information about beneficial owners to ensure that people were not illicitly profiting from government contracts. Moreover, governments did not specify how they would provide the information they committed to disclose
“Inconsistency” by the IMF was to blame, the report says:
The specific measures the IMF required varied widely from one government to another and only in certain cases did the IMF tie compliance to future lending. Significantly, Cameroon and Ecuador only followed through on their initial commitments because the IMF made approval of a second loan request dependent on their doing so. The IMF did not do so for Egypt, despite Egypt’s poor implementation of its commitments.
More IMF Direction Needed
The OCP/OO report reached similar conclusions.
“Everyone we interviewed noted that they welcomed the IMF emphasizing improved fiscal governance during the pandemic and that public procurement and beneficial ownership were important dimensions of the response,” according to a blog post by Open Ownership.
“We completely agree with this assessment,” the commentary continued, “Our number one lesson is that a bit more follow up by the IMF would go a long way.”
The OCP/OO report recommends for the IMF “should have been more specific and ambitious.” Other suggestions include providing financial and technical support for the transparency efforts and helping civil society with monitoring.
The suggestions from TI/HRW are very similar, beginning with, “Work with governments to clarify and detail best practices for fulfilling transparency commitments, including those related to user access, and beneficial ownership information.” Another proposal is for the IMF to “[h]ost a database of relevant documents to standardize the format and facilitate universal access.”
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