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It was yesterday the 24th of August 2011 when I was in Manchester town and I was suppose to meet some of my colleagues from Social Media at the Central Library but unfortunately I was thirty minutes late due transport delays on the way. So I missed the big opportunity to take part in filming, photographing and extracting information of when the Manchester town hall was built etc.
Having ruined the opportunity I visited the Heron building and went to see a young lady called Neen, the organiser and still believing that I might have chance to reunite with my friends. Neen tried her best to contact my colleagues but alas their phones were put on silence. In the end we sent text message to inform that I was around and they could contact me later. I sat for a long time in the building wondering what should I do to occupy myself. I picked up one of the magazines from the shelf. Literally talked about Project management. One of its phrases says,“Competent people deliver successful project.”
There was another article specifically centred on CHINA’S HIGH-SPEED SLOW DOWN. I will give you the brief account of the story. It said. “China’s high speed rail network is in danger of going off the rails after sacking the railways minister and series of other corruption investigations have delayed construction, The Economist reports. In 2008, China had only 649km of high-speed railway. It now has nearly 8, 400km, four times as much as the next largest network (Japan’s). The total will approach 19,000km by 2014, according to analyst at USB, a Swiss bank. That would be ten times as extensive as Japan’s. Estimates for the project range $530 billion to $750 billion. But question marks were raised over these plans after the sacking in February of Liu Zhijun, the minister responsible for high-speed network. He was accused of accepting 1 billion yuan ($152m) in bribes. Zhang Shuguang another top official in the railway ministry, was later dismissed for corruption. State auditors also reported that $28m had been embezzled from 1.300km high-speed line between Beijing and Shanghai, the highest-profile of China’s many rail projects.”
Having read that it amazes me how much time and effort that people put into something as big as that to make it successful. It also reminded me of my friend who visited China in 2008 on a business trip and when he came back he told me of these high-speed train and that he had also boarded one from Beijing to Shangai.
On this story, the word corruption has been mentioned leading to dismissal of railways top officials. Their own downfall came when it was only discovered that they accepted bribes. One prominent singer from Zimbabwe, Thomas Mapfumo, sang a song of corruption. He said, “Corruption in the society. Nothing for nothing.” On my point of view he sang after he recognised that corruption was spreading like cancer in our country. Starting from the government officials and spreading down to the main stream. There is an old saying that once the head of fish is rotten the whole body is also rotten. “Back door” became a common word sometime in Zimbabwe. If you really need something just use the back door. It became very successful that it born Favouritism, Nepotism and Scandals that were never resolved.
At the time when it happened I was very young to understand and I only thought its only things that happened in Zimbabwe but surprisingly as I grew up and became mature I came to understand it was not only my native country where these things happens but a global disease. It was like fungi. Here in England we had a series of stories of prominent ministers, top police officials who disgraced themselves by accepting bribes. Some of the officials went away with it and never brought to the courts. This fraudulent behaviour it seems it does haven’t an end. So who can sort who when who had a big log in his eyes?
