Passive Institutions
Monday, August 06, 2007
Name some, I asked, and was immediately pinned to the wall by a first, instant listing of deadbeat outfits, heavily and privileged staffed but achieving virtually nothing; and then by a separate listing of overlapping, duplicating, competing, funding institutions.
Not so long ago Jerry Gabaake delved into this morass and discovered that there are something like 50 parastatals of one kind and another, many of them totally unknown to the general public but which are, collectively, soaking up public funds on a giant scale. In the last thirty or so years, have any of them been examined, found wanting and dumped? Or have the numbers been steadily rising as new ones are annually added to the pile?
From Jakoba's mysterious disappearance on November 9 to the grim discovery of his remains at Mosinki Lands, a gap in the response mechanisms of the police and village leadership has been laid bare. The community's anger is evident, seen in the attack on Bakang Masole, the man found driving Jakoba's taxi and the main suspect, and the subsequent riot. Residents express discontent, citing a troubling trend of missing persons cases often...