Journalist Jaroslav Spurný responds to my criticism about the silence of the weekly RESPEKT (2021): I have to get used to the fact that "What is good for the public is fortunately not decided by Šinágl" (I can no longer find the text on FB). JŠ
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About a case from the State Department, or the de facto decision-making power remains in the hands of technocrats elected by no one. Overwhelming bureaucracy just one of the problems that is capable of stifling any effort at change.
The main method is to manipulate their minister, primarily by keeping him busy with time-consuming tasks whose sole purpose is to keep the minister busy and out of his way. However, he does not shy away from using his own mistakes against the Minister.
"This is a tragedy, the entire state and public apparatus is riddled with it. They don't decide ability but who is whose friend, who is kissing up to whom and can be useful in return, by passing on contracts to friends who helped him into office. You can change the whole government, but this is here to stay. You have to change the whole system and that is a Sisyphean job and I'm afraid it's just not feasible without a total screw-up of the whole society."
Systemic change will have to include at least three aspects:
1. the opportunity must be reduced - it would be naive to think that the phenomenon can be completely suppressed, except perhaps by the introduction of some rigid police state where fear of punishment would be a sufficient threat. Reducing the opportunity will reduce the lucrativeness of the target.
2. Transparency needs to be increased - what need not be secret, let it be made public. Even what must remain secret should be made available to those with appropriate authority. This applies especially to personal accountability for what has been done
3. If rules are broken, punishment must follow, and as soon as possible - in the above case, there are rules for both bankruptcy and auditing, and if they are not followed, the persons concerned must be held accountable.
However, from the above quotation, one can also agree with the last sentence in particular. Bureaucracy has one weapon - it can stop a company, or at least some important parts of it. And all it needs to do to do this is to start complying with laws and regulations to the letter. This trick was revealed to us by doc. RNDr. Jiří Veselý CSc. during his lectures on mathematical analysis what he would tell us about his years in the CSLA (the time frame for me is the sixties).
And this is only one of the problems that can stifle any effort for change. The cooperation between the government and the opposition, who may be in charge next time, could also be useful here...
P.S..
Even the Gestapo failed to fully control the state apparatus during the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia. The solution to the accumulated problems begins with the personal activity of each citizen. Unless there is an economic collapse of the state, or a revolution that puts truly capable and responsible personalities in charge, the situation will "solve" itself - for generations, with an uncertain end. The risk of the omnipotent coming to power again in the event of a revolution is great and natural, given the long absence of elites in our country and the Czech plebeianism. At the end of it may be the demise of the Czech Republic because it has allowed the rule of the incompetent and the criminal. There is ample evidence in history. We are paying for the loss of the elites without whom no country has a future. In clientelism (The Economist), i.e. theft of public funds, we are sekond (15%) in the world after Russia (19%). Today's situation is alarming. The situation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is appalling and cannot be permanently covered up by the public media. It can be compared to the practices of the Italian mafias, with the only difference that at the end it is not the dead (so far) but the most capable ones who obstructed the immoral events and refused to keep silent and not to act that are professionally liquidated. It's good that the first critical articles are finally appearing in the mainstream after all these years. What is happening at the MFA is closely related to corruption in the EU leadership.
This website was the only one to start reporting on events at the MFA in 2020, with the publication of a letter by the former Slovenian ambassador to the Czech Republic, Damjan Prelovšek. More shocking information will surely follow. Let us hope that the public media will finally join in and start serving the public, not interest groups and criminals who are going against the interests of the country and its population. Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky must start acting and keep his promises, otherwise he will be "removed", sooner or later. JŠ
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