China Environment Ministry Calls Itself One of Four Worst Departments In World

hackingbear writes "According to the Telegraph, 'Zhou Shengxian was quoted by state media as saying: "I've heard that there are four major embarrassing departments in the world and that China's ministry of environmental protection is one of them." Mr Zhou, an economist and veteran Communist Party member, blamed his ministry's malfunctions on "overlapping" remits, which confused the agency's role in handling issues such as carbon emissions and water monitoring. The minister made no mention of the other three most embarrassing departments but Chinese micro-bloggers were quick to weigh in with their suggestions.' Those suggestions including the navy of China's landlocked neighbour, Mongolia, Taiwan's foreign ministry, and China's petitioning department where officials are tasked with hearing and acting on the grievances of ordinary Chinese but can't handle/solve anything. Perhaps Zhou's department should be applauded for its honesty. What are your list of the other three most embarrassing departments in our world?"

Comments

Most embarrassing department in the world

[Anonymous Coward]

That would have to be the United Nations. A black hole when it comes to funds. A lot of pomp and circumstance, but very little action.

What About the Ministry of Censorship?

[eldavojohn]

What are your list of the other three most embarrassing departments in our world?

Surely the Environmental Ministry cannot be as harmful as the Chinese Ministry preventing this quote from being carried in Xinhua, China Daily or any major news source in China?

Tell me about the uproar that must have erupted from North of the Huai River when it was announced that the lack of environmental compliance has reduced life expectancy on average by five years in the northern half of China. Show me the state sponsored news source that ran that story. Go ahead, compare that article with with this one. The latter makes it sound like it was second hand smoke as the primary source of limited life spans. It's like reading two completely different health reports!

Solve your censorship problem and you will solve a lot of your other problems. Just be prepared to see high turnover in your leadership -- something that has been needed for a very long time in China.

British Department of Health

[seanellis]

...currently headed by a Health Minister who is doing his best to sell off as much as possible, close A&E departments, believes in funding homeopathy as a treatment using taxpayers' money, and who co-wrote a book describing the NHS as a "sixty year old mistake".

*sigh* only 3?

[dwpro]

DHS (Department of Homeland Security) - inept, invasive, expensive, and superfluous.
SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) - inept, impotent, and irrelevant. That or exceedingly corrupt.
DEA (Drug enforcement Administration) - ridiculous drug scheduling, over the top enforcement based on this poor scheduling, and representative of some of the most fixable problems we choose to litigate and prosecute rather than try and solve.