3 ms·
A problem with this approach is often you see corruption or crony-capitalism seep in. These contracts are then given in very favorable terms to certain bidders,
by erentz 10y ago
A problem with this approach is often you see corruption or crony-capitalism seep in. These contracts are then given in very favorable terms to certain bidders, or they are locked in for a very long time that can't be broken without paying huge penalties to the service contractor, no matter how terribly they are performing. You also can't adjust the goals of the service under contract over time - say you set your KPIs for the contract one way at the start but realize later actually this isn't working the best for the community and we need to manage it differently. Screwed.
- koolba 10y ago> You also can't adjust the goals of the service under contract over time - say you set your KPIs for the contract one way at the start but realize later actually this isn't working the best for the community and we need to manage it differently. Screwed. The answer to that is to have shorter contracts and/or having clauses in them that allows you to break the contract. The would naturally lead to higher costs as there would be additional business risk but it'd probably be worth it. In fact, a more general law I'd like to have in place is that a given government cannot create obligations that extend past N years unless there's a damn good reason for it. Short of distributing the cost of building a bridge over 20-30 years, there's no reason for governments to hand cuff their citizens like that (besides croneyism and kickbacks). Maybe have the max duration of the obligation be tied to the percentage of vote required. 51% max would be 1 year, 60% max would be 3 years, etc.