Posts tagged: corruption
.nxt reporting on ICANN, the entity in-charged of keeping the internet working:
Despite repeated and blatant abuse of its rules, despite active community support and information-gathering, and despite repeated efforts through its own rules and procedures to get ICANN to act, the organization has consistently failed to deal with a clear-cut compliance case for more than 18 months.
It has missed deadlines, skirted flaws in its own processes (and refused to recognize those flaws even when pointed out), ignored repeated warnings, consciously refused to act to resolve the issue, spent six months doing a job that takes one day, twice tried to hide its own mistakes, and at the very height of absurdity, refused to address a direct question in a Congressional hearing while sat next to the very person who it itself had accused of “backroom deals”.
It sounds exactly like the [SEC] which sat on silver-plattered evidence submitted by whistleblowers about the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scam and did absolutely nothing for almost 10 years.
The Telegraph:
Critics immediately swamped online forums to slam the new salary scheme, which was recommended by an independent committee whose proposals Lee has agreed to implement.
“Ordinary minister’s salary still higher than US President! Still too high! Pure Nonsense!” wrote a reader who signed off as Lim Lao Pe on the Yahoo! Singapore portal.
Honest article title.
The Worker’s Party:
Rather than an approach that assumes top earners are also top talent, WP recommends a whole-of-government, people-up approach to determining ministerial salaries.
WP has identified this approach in the way 12 developed economies determine their politicians’ salaries. The economies are Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States. In most of these economies, a minister’s salary is set at multiples of that of an MP, which is in turn set at the salary of a senior management grade in the civil service. This is the approach that Singapore should take, as political office is in the genre of public service.
WP proposes that MPs’ allowances should be pegged to the salaries of divisional directors in the Civil Service (excluding the Administrative Service)2. Civil service salaries are currently competitively benchmarked to general wage levels of Singaporeans. The salaries of ministers and the Prime Minister should be set at reasonable multiples of an MP’s allowance.
WP is supportive of a variable component which takes into account both national objectives being achieved through a whole-of-government effort, as well as the individual performance of ministers. While the suggested National Bonus incorporates some indices, WP believes that the formula should reflect that some national goals are longer-term in nature, requiring an assessment over the term of a government, not annually; some bonus payments may need to be deferred. We also propose to do away with the Annual Variable Component as this is unnecessary, since there is already a National Bonus based on national economic outcomes. The sum of the total variable components should be capped at a reasonable number of months.
WP further believes that the procedure for any review or change of the salary structure for political office should be transparent and subject to Parliamentary approval.
Very reasonable and sound proposals.
The death of at least 40 people on a high-speed rail line that had become a totem of China’s sleek progress towards wealth, modernity and national prestige is symbolic on many levels. If the trains are not safe, what of the banking system or the management of the economy itself?
The tragedy has become a public relations disaster for a Communist Party leadership dominated by engineers and technocrats.
…
China’s high-speed rail network, built in less than a decade, is the world’s longest. Its trains were supposed to travel at speeds that would put Japanese technology to shame.
Instead, the crash has exposed hubris, incompetence and corruption in a single, tragic crunching of metal. Perhaps not since Tiananmen Square more than 20 years ago has the Communist Party looked so naked in the face of public contempt.
…
China’s middle class wants a leadership that can contain corruption, ensure safety and not put pride above engineering principles. It wants, in the arresting words of a commentary in the People’s Daily - of all places - economic growth that is not “smeared in blood”.
Suppressed people will break-free one day demanding “accountability of its leaders”. I can’t wait!
