Bloggers and Russia’s bed of gold
p2pnet view P2P | Politics:- The net has changed the world. It’s the great equaliser. For the first time, people in all walks of life from every part of the planet can directly communicate with each other, completely by-passing the old media.
The word ‘politicians’ has long been synonymous with ‘liars’ and until the net came along, these supposed representatives of the people could get away with it knowing while the traditional lamescream press corpse might make one or two shock-horror reports, the matter would die soon afterwards.
But once something goes online, it stays there in full public view, as bureaucrats in Russia are discovering.
“Russians typically shrug their shoulders at the lavish lifestyles of government officials, assuming nothing can be done about bureaucrats who take bribes and pocket state funds”, says Agence France-Presse.
But “when Russia’s interior ministry announced plans to buy a golden bed, it raised an outcry — and revealed the potential of the Internet for stirring up outrage against entrenched corruption”, it says, going on >>>
While the state-dominated media looks the other way, a small but determined group of Russian bloggers is challenging corrupt bureaucrats, rallying public opinion and goading prosecutors into action.
Their blogs have attracted unanticipated popularity, reflecting deep-seated anger at some high-handed behavior of officials in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s government.
Last August, the ministry announced plans to buy 24 million rubles (800,000 dollars) worth of furniture, including a bed “covered with a thin layer of 24-carat gold,” according to the official tender documents.
The documents were posted deep within a website where all the government’s purchases must be published, under a law passed in 2005 during one of the Kremlin’s periodic efforts to root out corruption.
After bloggers and journalists exposed the plans, the ministry defended itself from ridicule by saying the bed was needed for a special VIP guesthouse in Moscow where it hosts foreign officials.
But Alexander Malyutin’s zakupki_news blog “helped draw attention to the golden bed and other dubious expenditures of taxpayer money”, says AFP, adding:
“Those have included plans by a Saint Petersburg astronomy institute to buy a Mercedes and by the governor of Russia’s far eastern Sakhalin province to bring African drummers from Burundi to perform at his annual New Years party. Both those tenders were canceled after outcries in the blogosphere, but the golden bed purchase went ahead.”
In August 2009, “The Interior Ministry is looking to spend 24.4 million rubles ($764,000) on new furniture”, said the St Petersburg Times, noting the bed order caslled for a “hand-carved frame made from European cherry, including headboards and footboards covered with ‘a thin layer of gold — 24 karats’.”
The office furniture must also be of the highest caliber. The varnish for a conference table can only be from Germany, while “all of the table’s fittings should be of German or Italian origin.”
Adds AFP, “The blogosphere, so far untouched by censors, is slowly becoming a ’socially significant force’ that spreads information ignored by Russia’s state-dominated media, said corruption expert Kirill Kabanov.
” ‘The major television channels are structures which serve the interests of the bureaucracy,’ said Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, a non-governmental organisation.”
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Agence France-Presse – Bloggers fight corrupt deals in Russia, March 18, 2010
St Petersburg Times – Ministry Seeks to Buy Gold-Decorated Bed, August 21, 2009
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March 21st, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Lets hope the midas touch is replaced by the medusa touch for those stealing from the pockets of the electorate.