Government leaders fail us, but are never held to account

Several nations around the world are often referred to as only "nominal" democracies. Countries such as Russia, Belarus or Uzbekistan may appear to bear the trappings of a democratic government on paper. In reality, however, these countries are so completely dominated by one political party that election results are a foregone conclusion long before any voting takes place. Even more troubling, these nations offer no accountability in their democratic systems. Government officials are allowed to conduct their affairs as they please regardless of ethics or competence.

Hawaii’s government is sadly becoming one of these "nominal" democracies. The long domination of only one political party in elections is alone troubling and unhealthy for Hawaii, as it is for many of the ex-Soviet nations of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

But recently, Hawaii’s government has also been moving the disturbing direction of a lack of accountability in our community.

Recently, Hawaii experienced one of the worst environmental disasters in state history when an unprecedented amount of molasses was released into Hawaiian waters by Matson. To date, no one from Matson or the state government has been dismissed or otherwise held accountable for this environmental disaster. Like an ex-Soviet kleptocracy, the entire Matson molasses disaster has shown a lack of accountability from either the private company or the state government.

Similarly, the University of Hawaii lost $200,000 in a bizarre fraud scheme involving an attempt to hire musician Stevie Wonder to play a concert for UH. The state then spent $500,000 to investigate the loss of this $200,000. After this entire waste of taxpayer money, no one in state government lost their job; no one has been held accountable.

At most, the Stevie Wonder blunder may have led to the retirement of UH President M.R.C. Greenwood. But this appears to have been as much to do with State Senate President Donna Kim exerting undue political influence over Greenwood in an effort to get Kim’s son admitted into the UH law school, as with anything to do with the Stevie Wonder concert fiasco. Yet again, like a banana republic, no one has been held accountable for this turn of events at the University of Hawaii.

Star-Advertiser reporter Rob Perez has chronicled the terrible failure of the Department of Hawaiian Homelands to fulfill its mission. Yet, DHHL has only witnessed chaotic staff turnover, allegations of unethical conduct and no one has stepped up in the state government to assume any responsibility.

Another example is the Hawaii Health Connector. After spending millions of taxpayer dollars and being given years to prepare, the program immediately ran into massive problems. Yet again, no one is being held accountable for yet another in a string of continuing failures in our government in Hawaii.

Ultimately, responsibility for correcting these repeated failures by Hawaii government rests with us — the voters. Unfortunately, Hawaii shamefully has the lowest voter turnout rate in the United States. If we continue to elect the same people over and over again, it should come as no surprise that we get a government with little incentive to reform, innovate or change. We must assume responsibility ourselves to change our government officials on Election Day so that we finally have a government accountable to the people.