UNCHECKED CRONYISM & CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Cronyism & conflict of interest
The system runs on cronies and it is not about what you know or even who is the best person for the project and task at hand. It was very much the case of who was the best person for factional interests. As far as professional focus and outcomes went it was an ineffective system because professional expertise was secondary to whether they like your thinking, you or your willingness to ingratiate yourself with them. Likewise whether you were a threat to them, real or imagined; or whether you were useful etc. Conflict of interest was rife and evident in different ways.

Conflict of Interest (1)
Key people could be in business together and where I worked the supervisor, middle manager and senior manager all had business connections with each other and others outside of work. As I got to know the place I came across other people who had business interests outside of work.

Conflict of Interest (2)
A major ‘international competition’ was awarded to a company with ‘good connections’ to people in high places. The assessment process undertaken by a team was a complete charade because we were instructed to ‘rig’ the assessment to ensure the ‘right result’. The final result was arrived at by rigging the assessment to ensure the rankings. We were instructed to do this and carefully worked out to weight criteria to ensure the team’s rankings never carried more weight than the opinions of others.

Conflict of Interest (3)
It was very clear there were factions based on race who had become entrenched in different parts of the organisation. These factions guarded their turf and looked after each other and if you weren’t one of them you were out.

Conflict of Interest (4)
In this environment you heard about people giving others little gifts for preferential treatment or to ensure there were no glitches with entitlements and the like. Of course there is a point where little gifts become big gifts with an escalating sense of pay-off.

Conflict of Interest (5)
Our supervisor was sports mad and as part of ‘team building’ (?) got the idea to have friendly football games with contractors. The problem was the 'A' team at work increasingly mirrored who was in the footy team. It got to the point where I wondered whether I was in a team of professionals or a footy team – which was more important?