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Honduras- Privatizing government experiment.
azith28
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_HONDURAS_PRIVATE_CITIES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-05-22-36-19
I find this amazingly interesting. Considering its location, conditions certainly could not get much worse off economically for the country so at the least, this could be viewed as a proof or failure of concept of the privatization of existing government duties.
We also get to see if all those movies about corporations running cities being police states is true!
Honduras sets stage for 3 privately run cities
By ALBERTO ARCE
Associated Press
World Video
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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- Investors can begin construction in six months on three privately run cities in Honduras that will have their own police, laws, government and tax systems now that the government has signed a memorandum of agreement approving the project.
An international group of investors and government representatives signed the memorandum Tuesday for the project that some say will bring badly needed economic growth to this small Central American country and that at least one detractor describes as "a catastrophe."
The project's aim is to strengthen Honduras' weak government and failing infrastructure, overwhelmed by corruption, drug-related crime and lingering political instability after a 2009 coup.
The project "has the potential to turn Honduras into an engine of wealth," said Carlos Pineda, president of the Commission for the Promotion of Public-Private Partnerships. It can be "a development instrument typical of first world countries."
The "model cities" will have their own judiciary, laws, governments and police forces. They also will be empowered to sign international agreements on trade and investment and set their own immigration policy.
Congress president Juan Hernandez said the investment group MGK will invest $15 million to begin building basic infrastructure for the first model city near Puerto Castilla on the Caribbean coast. That first city would create 5,000 jobs over the next six months and up to 200,000 jobs in the future, Hernandez said. South Korea has given Honduras $4 million to conduct a feasibility study, he said.
"The future will remember this day as that day that Honduras began developing," said Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group. "We believe this will be one of the most important transformations in the world, through which Honduras will end poverty by creating thousands of jobs."
Hernandez said another city will be built in the Sula Valley, in northern Honduras, and a third in southern Honduras. He gave no other details.
The project is opposed by civic groups as well as the indigenous Garifuna people, who say they don't want their land near Puerto Castilla on the Caribbean coast to be used for the project. Living along Central America's Caribbean coast, the Garifuna are descendants of the Amazon's Arawak Indians, the Caribbean's Caribes and escaped West African slaves.
"These territories are the Garifuna people's and can't be handed over to foreign capital in an action that is pure colonialism like that lived in Honduras during the time that our land became a banana enclave," said Miriam Miranda, president of the Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras.
Oscar Cruz, a former constitutional prosecutor, filed a motion with the Supreme Court last year characterizing the project as unconstitutional and "a catastrophe for Honduras."
"The cities involve the creation of a state within the state, a commercial entity with state powers outside the jurisdiction of the government," Cruz said.
The Supreme Court has not taken up his complaint.
In an interview Wednesday, Strong said that as soon as the Honduras government gives final approval to the boundaries of the sites, the developers will begin building infrastructure on the first half square mile of the first city, where they hope to have two or three businesses as tenants within 18 months.
He said the $15 million investment was contingent on Honduran government approval. He added that no tenants have made commitments to locating to the future private city yet, but the investors envision textile manufacturing, small-product assembly and outsourced businesses like call centers or data processing as possibilities.
"People are not going to put up big money for something that could fall through," Strong said. He did not name any of the investors in the project.
He said workers will be able to live in the cities, and the Honduran laws setting up the private areas guarantees that any citizen of the country can also live there.
"It can be a full-scale city," Strong said. "Once we have jobs then we will need affordable housing, schools, clinics, churches, stores, restaurants, all the businesses that create a real community."
The president of Honduras will appoint "globally respected international figures" without financial interests in the projects to nine-member independent boards that will oversee the running of the cities, whose daily operations will be administered by a board-appointed governor. Future appointments to the board will be decided by votes by standing board members, Strong said.
The governors will establish the rules by which the cities are initially run in conjunction with the developers, Strong said, but those rules can be changed in the future by popular votes among all residents of the cities.
Strong said Honduran law would not apply in the cities but they would have to adhere to international conventions on human rights and other basic principles.
He called the cities based on the best practices of free-trade zones around the world, like in Dubai, and he expected that they would successfully create jobs and help the development of Honduras.
"In general, free zones have been a spectacular success in terms of economic development," he said. "I'm very optimistic."
I find this amazingly interesting. Considering its location, conditions certainly could not get much worse off economically for the country so at the least, this could be viewed as a proof or failure of concept of the privatization of existing government duties.
We also get to see if all those movies about corporations running cities being police states is true!
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
azith28 on
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So what if one of these cities decided to adopt a law that was controversial or outright illegal in Honduras proper? What could the Government do about it?
anything it wants, realistically speaking. it's a government, these are foreign investors, it can just seize the city.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
One ED-209 per city block should be sufficient, no?
I would be surprised if this didn't work out great for the people that live there.
What usually happens is that you get a large number of rich people coming in to avoid taxes and the city doesn't allow low income housing so it turns into a huge gated community and the right calls it a huge success.
Some Atlanta suburbs did the same thing on a smaller scale.
:shock:
So, is anyone taking odds on which dystopia are going to be created? What's the over/under on shadowrun-ish corporate kleptocracy?
Meanwhile, the community has to have janitors and cooks and landscapers and repairmen, none of whom can afford to live in the gated community, and have to commute in to Oz from the real world.
So the fancy gated community becomes a social parasite, letting everybody else get their hands dirty with all the icky poor people and their yucky poor people problems.
Which is actually just fine as long as they're willing to pay taxes to help out the icky poor people.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Depends. Is Aztecnology involved?
Edit: Hell, they should just legalize the drug trade in the cities, invite the drug lords, then they could rule Honduras through a shadow government. The drug lords already have most of the government in its pockets right?
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
That's why they need a hermetically-sealed arcology.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the thing about a would-be Hong Kong is that, well, the benevolent neglect somehow included public housing, public education, and public healthcare for half the population
sometimes "libertarian" really needs the appendage "compared to what?"
-Shadowrun
-Welcome to Drug World, be sure to visit Cocaine Land
-Pullman
-Rapture
-Galt's Gulch
....
I fail to see any of those as positive.
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Only here some libertarians are going to come along in a couple of years and say "look Oz has low taxes and no social safety net and a per capita income 10,000 percent higher than the rest of Honduras, your move statist".
They won't want to pay them, most likely.
Which, you know, go ahead, don't pay the large forced of armed and trained enforcers, see how that works out.
Then again, maybe they'll institute a tax policy that is fiscally sound and understands the purpose and necessity of those taxes in maintaining general infrastructure that is used by everyone.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
with a dash of spanish enclaves in morocco and such
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Why?
Not really. They are still active in Hong Kong, although much diminished from their heyday in the 1960s, but essentially absent in Singapore. In part Singapore is no longer convenient to things that triads want to do (chiefly, drug trafficking). The most problematic crimes in Singapore and Hong Kong today are small-time scams on the gullible, not organized crime.
Still, Hong Kong is far better than Honduras with regards to drug movement, triads or not.
I mean, sure, privatization of essential government services is great, to the extent that it doesn't cause any problems.
Sort of like glory holes are great, to the extent that you don't contract any communicable diseases.
Could you elaborate on this a little?
The ego and ethic of a would-be governor of Hong Kong, in practice, I suspect.
In theory they probably have some technical mechanism of oversight but it doesn't really matter; the underlying "Honduras takes it back" possibility is going to lurk, even assuming it succeeds.
Reminds me of the rhetorical question, who will guard the guardians and who will police the police?. Some gray area, definitely. I imagine it would be the citizens who are the customers of the services much like we're paying for public services we all need and political leaders who accurately represent us and do what's in our best interest. At any rate, some public land or entities sold off to privately owned companies should have some benefits, at least get the wheels in motion to bring those entities back to life so they can do what they're supposed to in a functioning society.
Someone is willing to make the investment that we don't have to make. Why not?
Overall, I fail to see any positives from this. Sure something may turn into a utopia of helping the poor and improving quality of life. But realistically it's far more likely to turn into a tax haven and gated community that leeches what little wealth the country has into it's confines.
There's a reason George Pullman is buried under several tons of concrete.
Or alternatively, TANSTAAFL.
I know that my favorite part of Erin Brocovich was that bit where PG&E was forced to stop dumping crazy-high levels of chemicals into the water supply because of a letter-writing campaign by angry customers.
Foreign investment and jobs is the hope.
In one sense, it's nothing more than a formalization of a process that happens a lot anyway. Maybe a small difference of degree. Hondouras is saying, "If you come and build your factory here, we will literally let you do anything you want."
With "Unless we change our mind." unspoken but understood.