Daily Lessons from Life 05 March 2010

"Residents' committee leader blows $2.2m in Macau - Fri, Mar 05, 2010 China Daily/Asia News Network

CHINA - The vice-head of a Beijing residents' committee, who allegedly carried out an 11-million-yuan (S$2.2 million) swindle to finance massive gambling binges in Macau, has been charged with fraud.

Dongcheng Procuratorate said the 42-year-old Beijinger, surnamed Sun, served as vice-head of a committee in the Jiaodaokou area of Dongcheng district."

Another day and another cheat being found out. A cheat with some authority and supposedly in public service.

Lessons for me are:

1. when there are opportunities for people to entice others to part their money to get some 'advantageous gains' (in this case, the ability to get below market price property from Mr. Sun's contacts), people will take the bite. So, if it is too good to be true, one should walk away. Which is extremely difficult to do as if it were true, it was 'easy money'!;

2. some people in authority will always be tempted to abuse their positional power as, again, there were 'easy money' to be made! So, in this transaction, both sides were engaging in something that give them unfair advantages over other normal market participants. When such practices are deemed as normal, black hole is created! When things go wrong, there is nowhere to turn to seek fair compensation really. In this case, the transactions did not go through, hence Mr. Sun was suit by some of the 'givers' and caught! I guessed it was a 'fortunate thing within an unfortunate situation'!;

3. people in position must recognized that there will be opportunities to abuse their authority and guard against falling into the trap for looking for 'easy money'. In this case, Mr. Sun blown away the money in the casinos at Macau. Perhaps it was good that he did not use it to bride the officials responsible for the DongCheng Residential Development Authority but to abuse it himself. (?)

As leaders we must be vigilant and be on guard against complacency that will lead us to the age-old trap of abusing our authority. The temptations will be there. We must stand the test!!