Jobs over technology

Miroslav Kalousek has gone silent on his provocative thesis about the "creeping privatization of public authority," but Senator Jaroslav Kubera is picking up the slack. Something's wrong, he said, if government projects are dreamed up for the very purpose of throwing money someone's way. He used the new data boxes to illustrate his case, but even better examples can be found at Prague city hall. The red ink on the Kč 800m Opencard system isn't even dry, yet DP transit company already wants to spend Kč 3.5bn to return turnstiles to the metro. It's mainly a gold mine for the companies that supply and repair the equipment, and of course the officials who choose them. If a proper incentive system were used instead, the same amount could be used to hire something like 4,000 more ticket inspectors for five years. Especially in a recession, jobs should come before expensive technology (and theft).