Finally, I had the time to read Al-Wasat's special on the 2005 Audit Court Report. To those of you not on the surface of the earth, it's the annual audit report of all the government bodies in Bahrain. And by government bodies, I mean Ministries because, of course, those in "higher" places can never do anything wrong...
Anyway, here are my all-time favorites in the report:
- Central Informatics Organization bought BD400,000 worth of equipment for smart cards and used only 7% of them (LuLu: give Mr. Ateyatallah a break.. plotting and scheming is very hard work)
- Minisry of Finance didn't bother make a list of government land assets (LuLu: duhh who said there are government land assets left!)
- Undersecretary of Finance uses ministry vouchers to pay for gas fuel (LuLu: Ok this is too funny)
- ALBA forgot to sell the extra aluminium it produced after opening the 5th production line (LuLu: I live in monkeyland!!)
- In ALBA's account, "projected" and "book values" don't equal "real values" (LuLu: call an orange an orange.. how come we live in a country where there is corruption but no one is ever called corrupt?)
- Bahrain TV has no board of directors or org. structure (LuLu: or audience. Now someone please either fix this embarrassment of a network or just shut it down..!)
- Tourism directorate has no plan, no vision, no licensing regulations, no record of licensees, doesn't even collect its fees, and 75% of its licenses are expired (LuLu: and that is why the minister was re-appointed...)
- The Bahrain F1 circuit is losing BD25 million and the gov. is bailing its out (LuLu: oh for god's sake, how hard is it to manage this project?!)
Of course I am a bit irritated because I can't read the actual report. The Audit Court should just have posted it online! Of course, that just speaks to the loads of transparency measures we lack.. Anyway, I hope changes actually happen as a result of the report (if out of embarrassment at least!). I also hope at least ONE person responsible for any of those violations is actually held liable...
5 comments:
And the governments rebuttal would be:
Mr Minister : Nonsense, let me explain..oh, look there goes a tranny, lets go beat him/er up!
-But Mr Minister what about all the evidence backing these accusations?
Mr Minister : Did you not here what I said? We need to put a stop to our unemployment problems and accelerate our economics development by persecuting trannies!
- Mr Minister are you on crack to actually try pretend nothing has happened?
Mr Minister : Blasphemous! You are a part of a intergalactic conspiracy to over throw the government! But I will be kind enough not not expose your whole circle of allies, it is Eid in two days afterall. Now here's a 300 page report with video evidence dealing with out tranny problem... enjoy!
Hahaha.. Although I suppose the real unfortunate part it that there are people in Ba7rain who will believe the rebuttal!
True, look up my comment on your trannsexuals and parliament post.
The fact of the matter is we are a brainwashed society. Different sects and classes are manipulated regularly by different parties. Government on one hand, different religious leader on the other, western media and pop culture. At no single point in a Bahraini/Bahrainiyah's life are they encouraged to think for themselves by an external party. In fact, the external forces want to keep our minds jaded in our platonic cave no matter what it takes.
You're right, but isn't that the case in all societies? Special-interests (whether gov., religious, or business) will always compete for people's minds and use propaganda to gather support. I think Bahrainis are starting (slowly) to think for themselves and be more critical thinkers. It will take time, though, since we still suffer from a 30-year legacy of authoritarianism.. but we have no reason to give up just yet!
That is absolutly true. However,
- Whilst its true that people are starting to ask more questions, very few are actually being unbiased as to examine their own beliefs as well.
- Middle classes are usually considered to be the critical swinging votes in most of the western vote. Bahrain's demographics, if we were hypothesize a middle class, are not quite there just yet.
- Due to factors such as the education system, a great slice of the country is not quite going to walk into the light just yet.
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