Heng Poev Skips Cambodia etc: DDSS
August 9, 2006
DDSS
The more things change, the more things stay the same
Ah this Heng Poev debacle has been entertaining me all week; he is on the lam, he is not, he is; he is in Singapore, he is not, oh wait yes he is.
But this weeks revelation that he is going to ‘blow the whistle’ on high level corruption, assassinations and drug trafficking really is the icing on the cake or ‘the soot on the kettle’. If, as he alleges, he has evidence and testimony to support these allegations, to whom is he going to present it? To the allegedly corrupt politicians he once served? To the, oh so impartial, Khmer courts, or heavens forefend, to the ‘International Community?’
None of those really look like they are going to help or actually do anything about the problem; I mean if his allegations are true, half of them are involved anyway?
If he is hanging his hope on the UNHCR, well damn, everyone will die of old age before the UN gets around to organising an investigation, even one where they are not trying to cover up their own tacit complicacy. No, his best bet would be to skip out to another piss poor developing country with as much cash and assets as he can fit into his suitcase – or wire transfer from Grand Cayman – and start over in anonymity (I hear South America is nice, plus a popular choice for such things.)
Also recently we have seen some Political foreplay going on prior to the next election, the Tico Prince has formed the Alliance of those Without Hope, the Absent Prince offered an alliance with Ego Central at the SRP, which was rejected with him still at the helm and then the very offer of an alliance was denied; then we had some more hiring’s and firing, now we have yet more rumours that the Absent Prince?s big summer holiday is coming to an end and that he may well drop by Cambodia for a bit to see what is happening.
But all of this is just teasing, there is no real sexual tension yet, the true moves and deals – the slipping of the tongue and a quick fumble – will not be anywhere near as public until after the deals have been done, and not until we are a lot closer to the elections, or more likely after them. I can hardly wait.
In other news, I recently attended the ADB Sponsored Public Consultation on their proposed Financial Sector Blueprint for 2006 to 2015. A morning of my life that I will never get back. I foolishly thought that there might have been some progress, something of note, some thing concrete, such as, say, a plan?
Despite starting half an hour late we had to sit through four – yes FOUR – ‘opening speeches’. Three from senior Khmer Excellencies and one from a Senior ADB Muppet who, looking and sounding eerily like the Dad from the “Kumar’s at Number 42″, said strange things like ‘the best should not be the enemy of the good’ or ‘changes should be embedded in the local culture’.
After these opening speeches we had ADB’s pet academic from the University of Hong Kong present an overview of the actual Blueprint, or rather someone who looked bizarrely like ‘the thin man’ from the Charlie’s Angels movies read out a list of bullet points from a power point presentation the likes of which companied ‘the plan will be implemented’ and ‘the plan has six chapters, these chapters are called; one, two, three, four, five and six. Each chapter has four areas’ and so on and so forth, honestly, it was enough to make a gecko laugh.
The one rich resource that Cambodia has these days is ‘Plans’ plans, reports, studies, analysis, and more reports.
However, it is the next two steps are the ones that are always missing here, having a strategy is great, but then you have to have a plan for implementing it (project plan, Gantt chart anyone?) then the third step, ACTUALLY implementing it – not to mention implementing it effectively and efficiently (two words your average careerist NGO lentil weaving, sandal wearing, muesli snorting, vegan ponces could not even spell, let alone perform.)
Still as the event was at Raffles La Royale the complementary buffet breakfast and complementary buffet lunch were very good – or rather I should say that they looked very good, I could not bear to mingle anymore, so I nipped around the corner to the Tell Restaurant for a rather superb luncheon with a few friends.
Chin Chin
Lord Playboy
The views in this column are entirely those of Lord Playboy (of Phnom Penh, Sonteipheap and that muddy patch of ground next to the school;) they are in no way representative of Khmer440, its editors, staff or that corn-fed gimp in the cellar ,of any Ministry of the Royal Government of Cambodia that employs Lord Playboy, of westerners who are scared to ride motorbikes, of coach loads of seniors who arrive at Khmer restaurants and then complain about the lack of pizza, of anyone who posts regularly on the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Cambodia while actually living in Viet Nam, or Nazi playwrights who now are experts in Avian Flu. Damn, things will be different when I am running the Country.
