We Are From The Chinese Government. Do You Know Where Our Cars Are?
Announcement, carried by the Chinese Government’s Official Web Portal:
“The Chinese government is carrying out a nationwide investigation into the status of official motor vehicles in a bid to reform the way in which they are purchased and used.
Official vehicles will be surveyed and checked for registration as part of the campaign. Data collected during the survey will be used to lay the foundation for reforming the way official vehicles are managed, according to a statement from the central authorities.
The campaign will cover vehicles used by Communist Party of China ( CPC) organizations, government-funded institutions, people’s congresses, political advisory bodies, and courts and procuratorates, the statement said.
The campaign focuses on areas in which official vehicles may have been improperly purchased or operated. Vehicles that are discarded while still in good condition and the use of official vehicles for private purposes are prohibited.
The campaign is launched in response to the public’s demand for information about the expenditure of official officials.
Last December, a lawyer asked the Beijing municipal government to publicize the number of official vehicles in the city, believing that a growth in the number of official cars might be partially responsible for the city’s traffic woes.
On April 1, 2011, the financial department of the Beijing municipal government published statistics on its website, claiming that there were 60,206 official vehicles in the city.
The public hailed the municipal government’s move, although some voiced doubts about the figure, saying the actual number could be much higher.”
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Government buys cars but does not know it did? Cars are bought on the black market with no receipts?
Kind of like discovering where all the US Porkulus money went... into many black holes.
Lo-mein Jack?
When I was a computer sysad one of my jobs was to keep track of our computers...their location, who was using them, etc. We bought a system that included thirty-two dumb terminals and a big-cpu box to run them. These were all in two buildings in one chemistry lab, where we all worked for the same boss. I'm here to tell you that keeping inventory on this stuff was harder than one would suspect, so now when I read news stories about how the government can't find all of its cars, aircraft, guns, computers, computer disks, or the like, it doesn't really sound all that unreasonable.