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> He sold his shares hours(!) before being signed on as minister This is normal procedure. There is a rather short timeframe between appointment and becoming a

> He sold his shares hours(!) before being signed on as minister This is normal procedure. There is a rather short timeframe between appointment and becoming a minister. Of course did he sold it only after he know it would be a problem. > How you can mistake this obvious corruption for incompetence is beyond me. He had no benefits personally, so it's not corruption. This is just a nice story you tell the kids to give them a scapegoat, ignoring the historical context. This happend 1982, when Internet did not even exist yet. And fiber at the time wasn't really great as today. Copper probably was indeed the better solution, consicdering that survived the decades, where fiber from that time has already become useless long ago.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Except you're ignoring the part where the copper cable policy he pushed against the advice of his experts made the company he sold his share to obscenely rich. Is that also not corruption but incompetence?
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  I don’t see how you could call this corruption, he didn’t benefit from someone else getting rich. Unless there is any evidence that he sold his shares at an inflated price with the understanding that he would pay back the favour while in office or something like that, which I don’t think there is.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    It doesn't matter who benefits from this deal, what matters is the country got shit infrastructure against the advice of his experts and the taxpayers paid for it. Since he signed off on this, it's on him to be investigated. That's what corruption is. Of course, if you want, you can cover it up in red tape and make it look like incompetence.
    - DangerousPie 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption First sentence: > Corruption is a form of dishonesty or criminal offense undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, to acquire illicit benefit or abuse power for one's private gain That's what corruption is.
- slightwinder 6y ago
  This still lacks the information of his personal benefit. It's just no corruption until you have a benefit from it. And experts are also no argument, as there are always experts saying this and that which you can call on later for eny kind of complain. Neither you nor me are informend enough to say whether it was corruption, biasment, incompetence or something else. We don't even know whether it was good or bad for history. 30-40 years are a long time for technology and infrastructure.
zentiggr 6y ago
So... if he hadn't pushed for copper and instead did the 'better for society' fiber solution, the company wouldn't have been worth nearly as much, possibly much less. And those stock sales would have been much less profitable. Not direct cash bribe but definitely far more motivated than just incompetence.
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  I don't get it. Once he sold the shares he had no further interest in their value. Nothing that happened once he became a minister could have affected his profits from the sale of his stocks. Why are you saying "those stock sales would have been much less profitable"?!
  - labawi 6y ago
    Legally, that's why he had to sell the stocks, which is a reasonable requirement. OTOH, it doesn't preclude a mutually beneficial understanding, which the exchange points to. Maybe he had a deal, or wanted to keep the good stock between friends.
bserge 6y ago
> Copper probably was indeed the better solution, consicdering that survived the decades, where fiber from that time has already become useless long ago. Politics aside, isn't that the problem? Copper survived so it didn't need to be replaced. Fiber would have been replaced with newer one because otherwise it would not work at all. People put up with slow Internet, but they wouldn't have put up with no Internet.
pantalaimon 6y ago
It’s true, they installed fibre in the 90ies when modernizing the phone network in the East. A decade later those OPAL installations were replaced again by copper as they could not handle high speed Internet.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

Except you're ignoring the part where the copper cable policy he pushed against the advice of his experts made the company he sold his share to obscenely rich. Is that also not corruption but incompetence?

DangerousPie 6y ago
I don’t see how you could call this corruption, he didn’t benefit from someone else getting rich. Unless there is any evidence that he sold his shares at an inflated price with the understanding that he would pay back the favour while in office or something like that, which I don’t think there is.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  It doesn't matter who benefits from this deal, what matters is the country got shit infrastructure against the advice of his experts and the taxpayers paid for it. Since he signed off on this, it's on him to be investigated. That's what corruption is. Of course, if you want, you can cover it up in red tape and make it look like incompetence.
  - DangerousPie 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption First sentence: > Corruption is a form of dishonesty or criminal offense undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, to acquire illicit benefit or abuse power for one's private gain That's what corruption is.
slightwinder 6y ago
This still lacks the information of his personal benefit. It's just no corruption until you have a benefit from it. And experts are also no argument, as there are always experts saying this and that which you can call on later for eny kind of complain. Neither you nor me are informend enough to say whether it was corruption, biasment, incompetence or something else. We don't even know whether it was good or bad for history. 30-40 years are a long time for technology and infrastructure.

zentiggr 6y ago

So... if he hadn't pushed for copper and instead did the 'better for society' fiber solution, the company wouldn't have been worth nearly as much, possibly much less. And those stock sales would have been much less profitable. Not direct cash bribe but definitely far more motivated than just incompetence.

DangerousPie 6y ago
I don't get it. Once he sold the shares he had no further interest in their value. Nothing that happened once he became a minister could have affected his profits from the sale of his stocks. Why are you saying "those stock sales would have been much less profitable"?!
- labawi 6y ago
  Legally, that's why he had to sell the stocks, which is a reasonable requirement. OTOH, it doesn't preclude a mutually beneficial understanding, which the exchange points to. Maybe he had a deal, or wanted to keep the good stock between friends.

bserge 6y ago

> Copper probably was indeed the better solution, consicdering that survived the decades, where fiber from that time has already become useless long ago. Politics aside, isn't that the problem? Copper survived so it didn't need to be replaced. Fiber would have been replaced with newer one because otherwise it would not work at all. People put up with slow Internet, but they wouldn't have put up with no Internet.

pantalaimon 6y ago

It’s true, they installed fibre in the 90ies when modernizing the phone network in the East. A decade later those OPAL installations were replaced again by copper as they could not handle high speed Internet.