One of the biggest mechanisms by which the people of the world have lost trust in government and industry is through the bungling of large-scale infrastructure projects.
Institutional failure due to mismanagement and maintenance of the infrastructure.
Far too often political point scoring or crony capitalism gets in the way of delivering the best value for money project.
Proposed by the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd in 2009, the national broadband network (NBN) of Australia sought to connect 94% of Australians to a fibre network that extended all the way to their premises (FTTP).
At the time the project was estimated at around $60 billion, making it one of the largest government expenditures in the world.
A few years later following a series of political backstabbing and leadership spills, the opposition party came into power and decided that the $60 billion project was far too excessive, and an equally good project could be delivered for $30 billion using a mixed bag of technologies.
This would be achieved primarily through a fibre to the node (FTTN) network where the last mile would rely upon the conventional copper networks of Australia’s formally publicly owned telco provider and the NBNco would be responsible for paying for the maintenance of that copper.
Fast forward to 2022 and the Labor Party who originally proposed the $60 billion expenditure is back in power for the first time and wants to develop a solution to address many of the problems that have arisen through relying upon that mixed bag of technologies.
The copper has become especially problematic as it is prone to damage in the numerous natural disasters that have befallen the country in the last few years.
Unfortunately, in doing so they will be unable to recover the nearly $30b that will have been lost through NBNco’s mismanagement and maintenance of the infrastructure.
At the time the original plan was being proposed, there was a huge amount of criticism for the expenditure from an international media company who also owned the country’s primary subscription TV service wherein a high bandwidth Internet would disrupt both their printed media and subscription service revenue.
Introducing a transparent, evidence-based approach via blockchain
Can blockchain stop this kind of bungle from occurring and bring accountability to the politicians that attempt to use a country’s critical network infrastructure for petty point scoring?
Can using blockchain mitigate the pernicious effect of crony capitalism whereby $30b of taxpayer funds can be squandered on pursuing a solution that’s only going to have to be replaced by another $30b worth of spending 10 years down the track?
By cultivating a paradigm such as blockchain-based scientific publishing, and more tightly coupling the empirical evidence that arises from it with policy makers and firms involved in the roll out of these projects, we can have a much greater confidence in assurances made throughout the entire process.
During the exploration process, relevant literature can be cited, the expertise of those extracting the interpretations derived from the state of the art in networks and other similar large scale infrastructure roll outs can be verified and even exposed to competitive market forces themselves.
Members of the public who may have decades of experience in the field but weren’t included for consultation could be invited in through blockchain based social engagement tools. Their approaches can be compared against those that come from government appointed experts and a list of essential outcomes can be generated from a more robust process.
During the tender process, firms may each put forth their proposals and costings for how to achieve the essential and desired outcomes of the project, and their attestations recorded on chain to be used in the event of project blowouts or insolvencies.
By having a more transparent evidence-based approach, insurance providers can more accurately evaluate what can and can’t be covered in the event of disaster or bankruptcy.
Blockchain brings transparency and accountability
When these projects are to be funded by the government in power, the various ministers involved in approving the winning tender, and passing the bill through the houses can all be accountable for their actions and the fact that they effectively endorsed the best implementation that came about after rigorous cost benefit analysis.
This not only increases the public’s trust in the entire process, but it makes it more difficult for the politicians to flip flop on the issue at a later point in time.
When the project is rolled out, knowing that it was done by everyone trying their best and with maximum transparency and accountability attained throughout the entire process then it’s much easier to accept the outcome even if it doesn’t turn out as good as it could have.
No one can tell the future, but everyone benefits if we can all tell the past accurately.