Soon, May 6, 12:10, Sywert van Lienden will be a guest at Buitenhof. I didn't really want to share the rant below. I'm doing it now anyway, exclusively for my mailing listers because I hope to have some credit with that. I don't put it in the overview (for the time being), it is a somewhat too personal tirade against the swollen administrative types that our country is full of. It is not a carefully considered article, I can't find the right form.
At the same time, as a result of the Sywert affair, I see patterns where things go wrong all the time: the officials who are not prepared (and have never been trained) for the tasks to be fulfilled and who still take everything to themselves because they think they can do better. This is called the Dunning-Kruger effect, known from psychology: incompetent people lack the metacognitive ability to see that their assumptions, choices, reasoning, conclusions and methods are wrong precisely because of their incompetence. This accelerates mass formation: that is the irrational pursuit of supposed (also self-destructive) solutions to collective fear.
Maar wat gaat Sywert zeggen zometeen in Buitenhof? Mijn inschatting: "Ik heb gezegd geen marge te maken op de mondkapjes, ik heb nooit gezegd dat ik geen handling fee zou berekenen. Er zit jaren voorbereiding en planning in." De algemene opinie is dat hij misbruik heeft gemaakt van de situatie. Ik zie het ook als een ongelijke strijd tussen een berekenende vos en kakelende paniekvogels. Er is een grijs vlak tussen het zien van kansen en uitbuiting van een situatie. Ik bekijk het dus van de andere kant in onderstaande rant over zelfvoldaan bestuurlijk onvermogen. Ze hebben er zelf om gevraagd.
Sywert van Lienden has been a jury member for many years past event of the Anne Vondeling Prize, handing out medals of honour at the interface of politics and journalism. Medals of honour have already been put in a questionable light this week when Jaap van Dissel received a KNAW award. Praise is thus less and less like a tribute and smells more and more like a lobbying tool. Jury members are networkers, lobbyists, career tigers. Soon accepting an award will be equivalent to surrendering your integrity.
The Netherlands is having a tough time administratively. The tunnel vision of incompetent advisors causes unprecedented damage to society, policy makers take control and planning promptly falls into the water, financial mismanagement is limitless: purchasing is bypassed, resulting in missing invoices and reckless expenditure. Supervision is failing: the country is full of healthcare counters and healthcare institutes, supervisors, healthcare quality monitors and budget monitors and they all keep their mouths shut - you don't bite the hand that feeds you. The average volunteer association does better and is better monitored.
The coronaphobes are easy prey. In their collective fear they can no longer think clearly, causing even skeptics to fall back on their gut of reputations instead of critically evaluating factual content (if they even have that ability), 'because we are in a crisis'. Side effects, costs, misery - nothing matters because the problem must be solved with discipline and vaccines. Everyone keep your mouth shut, give up your civil rights and you may temporarily get some of that back if we inject you, something that may not work optimally and so on, but there is no time for that right now. Money doesn't matter.
Seizing an unlikely opportunity, is that exploitation?
Voor iemand die het hoofd koel houdt biedt dat enorme kansen. Met een klein leugentje -althans in verhouding met de enormiteiten die dagelijks de revue passeren in de Tweede Kamer en in de media- is er een mooie zakelijke deal te sluiten. Alsof de deal zonder dat veronderstelde leugentje 'om niet' niet zou zijn gemaakt. De hele parade van ambtenaren, politici en alles wat daaromheen hangt, is erin meegegaan. Want er is crisis dus we moeten doorpakken. Belletje naar van Dissel "Is dat een redelijke prijs voor een mondkapje?", die mompelt wat over "gezien de situatie waar wij in verkeren" en "verzoek indienen bij de afdeling inkoop" en "wel in die orde van grootte" en Hugo is gedekt. Het kan een paar dubbeltjes schelen maar wat maakt dat uit, want covid. Korte lijnen, daar houden we van.
In business there are traders who benefit from the principle 'we ask what the fool is willing to give for it'. In this way, the fools are cleverly defeated. In trade the buyer always pays too much, otherwise there would be no trade. It is up to the trader to make outrageous profits. This applies to both small and large businesses: shareholders would not want it any other way.
Questions about the face mask deal
- Was the deal made under false pretenses? Well, false, false... they also cheat on the population to get things done, that's how it goes, don't you sometimes present something as better or worse than you actually expect? Especially with face masks! Boontje comes for his wages.
- Where are the contracts stating that no profit would be made - and the associated purchase notes to demonstrate that?
- Why was there no payment directly to the suppliers? You have a whole ministry at your disposal, don't they have time? You're not going to transfer someone 100 million based on an invoice and some smooth talk, are you?
- Do you know how hopeless it is to become a preferred supplier to the government or a large organization at all?
- Tenders, hello?
- Is it really true that it would all be 'for nothing'? Where is that? And why don't you, as a government, insist that you pay a decent compensation? Don't want to spend money or something?
- Haven't the pharmaceutical companies made similar deals with the same 'negotiators'? Billions in profits at the expense of citizens, excluding any liability? So what's the problem if someone has some money left over? Don't have such double standards, Dunning-Krugers.
After the wasted billions, I can't really worry about Sywert's millions. When wads of money are thrown, don't be surprised if such a wad is occasionally caught. The billion dollar deals with the pharmaceutical companies, the destruction in society, that is really of a different order.
Sywert van Lienden closed a face mask deal with a profit of 9 million (actually 40 million according to other sources). How did he get into that position? Well, he's just good at that. He was also allowed to join a prestigious jury that apparently could not judge its own candidate members very well. A jury, created by politicians (and paid for, I think, although the mandatory annual reports cannot be found on the site), which holds an honorable prize in front of political journalists: the Anne Vondeling Prize. Koos van Houdt confession in a Editorial piece publicly on having ever accepted a comparable prize, but at European level. I try to imagine what should be on such a jury if things take place at European hotel level.
In addition to the balloting, the Anne Vondeling jury seems to be doing well, for example, I also see Follow The Money among the national newspapers as one of the laureates. Yet, in the current field of tension between politics and journalism, such a lobby from politics to journalism is starting to taste different.
Jury's als lobbyclubs
There has to be lobbying and chatting, fortunately politicians cannot simply engage in bribery - other than handing out tickets for the job carousel. Foundations are therefore being created to connect people who may already have a job or are not eligible for a European, mayoral or political position for other reasons: insufficient administrative experience, for example. A jury member must have that because before you know it someone will be out of the picture, it is a matter of trust. This falls under administrative integrity.
Such foundations want to cultivate goodwill, draw attention, create support, set a course. This is often done through, for example, the handing out of symbolic attributes: pins, coins, certificates, even a necklace (to hang around, not to chain someone with). In this way, role models are created with which desired behaviour is set as an example at festive and publicity-interesting awards ceremonies that can act as a carrier of the underlying message.
They are still directors
A word about the club of the decoration awarders above. The first award ceremony of the Mérite Européenne took place in 1998, presumably immediately after the launch of the their current website. De Mérite has not met since March 2020 (!) because, yes, Covid. Then you can't meet, of course, because you're not allowed to get together because of covid. No one apparently wonders how meetings work in the business world. By the way, the Catshuis has been meeting regularly throughout the lockdown because of Covid - but they didn't know that in Europe. So the existential union must be patient.
"Journalist ontvangt prijs vernoemd naar politicus", of je daar nou op zit te wachten als onafhankelijk journalist, ik weet het niet.
Decisive governance
Former prize winner Koos asked the current chairman of the Anne Vondeling Prize how Sywert ended up in the jury, but that happened under the previous board, so then everything stops, of course. There is then no longer an active memory of this among directors. Always busy with minutes and annual reports but yes, you can't keep everything. Then there is no more responsibility, no reason to reconsider the admission criteria, let alone to take a closer look at the antecedents of other jury members because apparently strange things have happened in the previous board period. None of that. Then you are really a director. Keep the ranks closed. Speak with one voice, especially when there is pressure. 40 million in the pockets of a supplier of face masks who don't really do much anyway. And afterwards it turned out to be unsound (or were those others?). Those things happen, administrators understand that among themselves.
Hopefully an investigative journalist will come up with the idea of digging into that previous board and reconstructing Sywert's career path. There are probably some loose ends there that you need to follow up on. That will make for a nice biography and I am looking forward to the final film and - if the film wins an award - the musical about that apparent frat boy. A 'Wolf of Wall Street / Catch me if you can'-like scenario is quite conceivable with those antics.
As a side note: There is such a person in prison in Haarlem: Simon Raedts, charming, charismatic man, with his clock on, chairman of Bevrijdingspop, commissioner positions here and there, Rotary member, VIP seats at Ajax, trips abroad, etc. I don't know whether he has also served on juries, that would fit the pattern well. Ultimately, he was caught for fraud and embezzlement of several million. He leaves a trail of destruction behind and yet remains a convinced victim of unreasonable demands. He is even willing to spend years in prison for his principles. Somewhere in a German bank account the millions are waiting for him - but he has lost his password so that cannot be proven. Copies intended to convince the court otherwise turned out to be forged. That is also a great soap opera. Then Sywert played it more cleverly.
The Umfeld is actually more interesting
I think it would be especially interesting to see to which people such people owe their rise. That must be done through consultation. Who is allowed to join such a jury or administrative body? Are they yes-men? Followers? Opportunists? Or clear thinkers with spot-on observations that can shake things up? No one actually wants them there, you were not created to question yourself, after all, it is not a philosophical company. A jury group with only distrustful critics is not going to work, I understand that, but when I see how little critical capacity there is among supervisors, in journalism, and among ministers, then we do have a problem when it comes to group compositions. Is it HR's fault? It seems as if things go wrong wherever a course of events is incorporated into a system with policy officials, advisors and other interchangeable figures. Unlike entrepreneurs, they are not immediately in (financial) pain if they do something wrong, that could have something to do with it. Roel Coutinho was also such an interchangeable substitute, look what we have now.
Unlike entrepreneurs, substitutes are not immediately in (financial) pain if they do something wrong. If there is any pain, it will be - if they are smart - their successor. In such a situation you can easily transfer tens of millions from someone else's bank account to a self-employed person or small company.
Sywert's success must be due to his network, he had no merits. He left university cold when he took a seat on the Anne Vondeling jury. Maybe he has important relatives? There are plenty of rickety wheelbarrows driving around 'the circuit', but on the other hand he can really have an unlikely chat full of promise, opportunism and sycophancy. These are undeniable talents if used properly: perhaps he should enter politics or work for the state media as a spokesperson - I mean a journalist. Then he can immediately hope for a medal from his ex-jury. He may be unethical and out of line: once again the government has blundered, acted carelessly, shown incompetence and lack of overview. I would say: shared guilt.
