Transport Rip-offs

Look at something long enough and strange patterns begin to appear. Thus it is with corruption. I don’t mean the obvious patterns, like South Korea’s sporting politicians. If you missed that, The Prime Minister and his sidekick were recently kicked aside for playing golf on a public holiday.
To be fair, it wasn’t just the golf although that, oddly enough, was close to a hanging offence. The bright pair made up a team with a bunch of businessmen who are being investigated for buying government favours.
That was closely followed by the Mayor of Seoul, in trouble for his regular games of tennis, or the fact that the tab was picked up by other people. Politicians obviously come cheap in SK.

A more subtle pattern which has been threading through the world of corruption is Transport Authorities. I’ve been noticing this trend for some weeks, but only just got around to looking closer. On the face of it, transport would seem to be one of the less sexy responsibilities of government. Responsibilities can range through from Highway, port and airport infrastructure down to driver licensing and vehicle registrations.
There is, no doubt, plenty of room for corruption in that mix, from tendering and contracts for the big boys to simply bribes for the clerks.

The stories still current include:
Romania where politicians, including an ex transport minister, are under investigation.
Czech Republic: Where two Transport Ministry officials whom the police detained on suspicion of corruption.
Ghana: Road Transport Minister defending his ministry against charges.
Kenya where corruption is rampant in the registration and licensing of vehicles, the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission says in an investigation report.
Viet Nam where the general director of the transport ministry’s management unit 18 who was arrested last month for gambling, ‘lent’ the cars worth around US$1.25 million.


These are all, to some extent, developing economies supposedly rife with corruption. I’m inclined to think they are simply less sophisticated in the art. Developed economies have had far more experience in mitigating or shifting the focus from corrupt activities.
But they still have their share.
In Australia the NSW state government transport ministry has been a traditionally stormy sector. Currently the heat is on over a series of ‘Private Public Partnership’ projects, including an airport railway tunnel built for the 2000 Olympics and various city traffic tunnels and freeway projects.
PPP might be a great way to sell big infrastructure projects to financiers, but they a fraught with trouble, with the taxpayer picking up the tab for substandard projects and white elephants.
The USA, of course, has its celebrated Ports deals gone wrong. The scandal in that episode is very much a matter of perspective, but looks to be about an administration crippling itself and the country through paranoia generating, anti terrorism rhetoric.

Note to self: You will not get into cross-indexing charts showing the relative corruptibility of various areas of governmental responsibility.