Once again we are assailed by the Infrastructure Thingamajig organized by Kadin, whose putative purpose is to attract investment in infrastructure projects. It is being held between November 1 and 3 and being hailed as a “landmark event” that would miraculously bring investment to the country.
The spin not withstanding,The Infrastructure Thingamajig started life as the Infrastructure Summit but now it has been downgraded to a Conference and Exhibition instead. Why? Perhaps it is because the last Infrastructure Summit in January 2005 had very little to show. I’m bad with details but if I remember correctly less than over 90% of the 90 plus projects pledged at the last summit have failed to materialize.
Now Kadin and its sponsors are again splashing out on an Infrastructure Thingamajig. But have they learned the lesson that spin convinces no one, and that if they fail to deliver on their promises they would be sooner or later be unspun? (sorry, couldn’t resist that one).
As W.H. Auden would say: “Time will will tell”. Until then, however, here’s a little something that I wrote in The Jakarta Post on the Infrastructure Summit of 2005 headlined Actions Speak Louder than Words
Unspun 
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