Saturday, April 30, 2016

Buddy Protection Rackets

Thinking on yesterday's post on a miscreant's best cover, a classic example is the Complaints Bureau which exists only to kill complaints (not to solve them). But let us think more broadly for a moment. Serving much the same purpose as Complaints Bureaus, one has Commissions, Councils, Societies, Directorates, and so on, which all likewise exist to handle complaints -- only more specialised ones, and more serious ones. But over time, they, too, may become Complaints Bureaus which exist only to kill complaints. Or worse, they may become protection rackets. At that point, if not sooner, one has what is called corruption. OBSERVATION: This, I perceive, is one of the biggest problems in South Africa today. The situation is very serious. A city journalist wrote to me recently regarding a major, and critical, "Complaints Bureau": "It has turned self-regulation into a buddy protection racket."

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