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.

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.

And those stock sales would have been much less profitable.

Not direct cash bribe but definitely far more motivated than just incompetence.

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.

A decade later those OPAL installations were replaced again by copper as they could not handle high speed Internet.

Is that also not corruption but incompetence?

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.

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.

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.

In practice, when such "incompetence" involves millions (of Euro, dollars, etc.) - and those involved stand to gain from it - we ought to scrutinize it as a possible symptom of "malicious competence".

For me, "incompetence" sounds like an excuse or smokescreen, when there are those who profited from it. After all, numerous real-life cases suggest that corruption is endemic, if not inherent, in our institutions of politics, business, and public decision-making process.

Personal financial gain by abuse of power.