The government has expressed and communicated concern over the abrupt review of the methodology in the World Bank Doing Business Report.

The 2020 World Bank Doing Business Report was released on Thursday this week with Rwanda maintaining its position as the second easiest place to do business in Africa behind Mauritius.

The report ranked Rwanda 38th globally from 29thin its previous ranking.

The drop in position was traced to an indicator, protecting minority investors where Rwanda was placed 114 globally from 14th in the previous report.

The drop in ranking was however not a result of performance but a change on the methodology and approach of measurement.

Among the changes made by the World Bank in evaluation of the indicator was that addition of assessment of the stock market as part of the indicators in the report.

According to the latest ranking, for an economy to be seen as having an active stock market that protects minority investors, it has to show at least 10 companies listed and trading equities.

Rwanda’s grievances with the review was that it was not communicated as is standard practice of the World Bank Doing Business Report ranking methodology.

 Louise Kanyonga the Chief Strategy and Compliance Officer at RDB said that Rwanda is big supporter of the report, its progress and updates to improve quality but expressed concern over abrupt changes that are not communicated.

Dr. Rita Ramahlo, World Bank Senior Manager involved in development of the report said that in August this year, the ranking reviewed the parameters considered under the protecting minority investors to include stock market.

Admitting that the review had not been communicated, she said that the review was to improve quality measures.

Standard methodology measures involve communication to countries well in advance before collecting data.

However Ramalho said that considering that the consideration of firms present on the stock market did not require any surveys, no communication had been made.

The ranking took into account 3 reforms in three indicators, starting a business, dealing with construction permits and getting electricity indicator.

However, government agencies expressed concerned that there were more reforms than was captured.

For instance, Fred Mugisha from One Stop Centre said that the ranking used aspects from a building code that was no longer in use and did not take into account reforms such as elimination of geotechnical studies, topographic and Environmental Impact Assessment studies.

The World Bank defended its position saying that the  reforms were considered based on the respondents and users feedback to mean that in some instances, despite reforms being made, stakeholders still use old practices.