CITY AND SUBURBAN
Rubens Ricuperates! It just goes to show that you can't keep a good boondoggler down
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Ishould never have taken my eye off Rubens Ricupero. He caught it when, as Brazil's aesthetically named finance minis- ter, he appeared on television to explain his way with official statistics. 'I have no scru- ples,' he admitted. 'What is good, we take advantage of. What is bad, we hide.' After all, there was a presidential election on, and the government's candidate needed all the help he could get. Later, pleading that he did not know the microphone was loaded, Mr Ricupero resigned. This was doubly bad luck because at the time he was the favourite for a splendid new international boondoggle, based in Geneva. The World Trade Organisation, then coming to birth, would soon need somebody to run it: tax- free salary, diplomatic status, first-class air- travel and other benefits to match. He had to beat Carlos Salinas from Mexico and Renato Ruggiero from Italy — two minis- ters whose countries made Brazil and its finances look quite good. Mr Ruggiero got the job, but now look! Mr Ricupero has turned up as secretary-general of Unctad, the fine old international boondoggle, based in Geneva. Its official concerns are trade and development, but its initials have been said to stand for Under No Circumstances Take Any Decisions. To this end, Mr Ricu- Pero is about to stage a conference, when thousands of delegates will fly to Johannes- burg at someone else's expense and stay there for a fortnight, talking. Among them will be Mr Ruggiero and the secretary-gen- eral of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, alias the Flying Boutros. Down on their agenda is the future of Unc- tad itself, under threat from reformers who want to shake up the UN and see if it can get along with fewer agencies. I am sure the Conference will agree that Unctad deserves a great future, with more conferences and more air tickets. Rubens Ricupero will have the statistics to prove it.
This week's good cause
BOONDOGGLES like Unctad outlive their usefulness — those that ever had any because they are easier to start than to stop. They are set up in a blaze of philanthropy. Then the empire-builders move in, and White marble for their offices becomes the Week's good cause. Then the next week's good cause is a job for some minister's West- ern-educated second cousin. Then the minis- ters defend them and the cousins are all for expanding them. No one has an interest in shutting them, or no one but the taxpayers who inadvertently support them. So on they go, regardless of cost or point. Does Asia, the lair of the tiger economies, still need an Asian Development Bank? Does Vienna need a UN agency that promotes industrial development, in its own quiet way? To the reformers — and Kenneth Clarke can sound like one — I suggest two rules of thumb. First, for every such agency created, another must be strangled. Second, every agency should have a self-destruct clause, which would wind it up on a fixed and not too dis- tant date unless its sponsors positively vote to keep it going. Alternatively, they could spend the money on good causes.
Borrow now, pay later
YOU WILL be pleased to know that the big banks are making more money than ever. First with the good news this week is Lloyds, bulging like a boa constrictor as it digests the TSB and Cheltenham & Gloucester. All they need now is a boom in the house market, but while they are waiting they fuel the boom in the stock market, furiously lending to com- panies that want to take each other over or apart. They have plenty of capital, or think they have, they need to keep it occupied, and that means lending — or, of course, making furious takeovers of their own. After all these years we are back in a borrower's mar- ket. Borrowers should enjoy it while it lasts, and hope that the fine terms on offer to business will spread to the personal cus- tomer. They should also remember that such markets end in tears.
Wrong line working
THE WORD in the Dealmakers Arms is that the chaps on the London Tilbury and Southend Railway were not up to much: 'Imagine inflating the profits when you're bidding for the company! Putting up the price against yourself! They got it the wrong way round — should have been issu- ing tickets at Upminster, wherever that is, and selling them at Fenchurch Street. Obvi- ously not suited to the private sector. British Rail was quite right to scratch them out. More brandies, Angelo.'
Generally speaking
TITULAR INFLATION is rampant in Whitehall. The Department of Trade and Industry, I learn, is planning to have nine directors-general. This is by way of a riposte to its old rivals at the Treasury, which now runs to seven directors. No more dreary deputy under-secretaries. Like this, the Treasury thinks that it can acquire a lean and flat management structure, with plenty of empowerment and other buzzwords. The DTI's riposte implies a hypermodern struc- ture, for one director-general, giving general direction, is generally rated quite enough for one organisation, even this one. The DTI must think it is a rank, on military princi- ples: major-general, lieutenant-general, director-general. So which of them will take command? None of them, or not yet. They will all have to form up to Sir Peter Greg- son, the DTI's notably permanent secretary. I do hope that the means can be found to inflate their stipends along with their titles.
Off centre
I NEVER cared for South Quay when I worked there. It was a charmless and pre- tentious building, miles away from any- where that I might need or want to be. All the same, for the IRA to blow it up was a bit much. This unpleasantness seems to have been meant to harm London as a financial centre, although, as I say, no one could call the West India Dock central. The theory is that business will now go else- where. I do not foresee it. The sad truth is that all financial centres have their inconveniences and hazards. In Paris and Tokyo, stay clear of the metro. In New York, do not stand too close to the World Trade Center. As for Frankfurt, the night- life there is limited, and not available on Tuesdays, when she goes to Wiesbaden to see her auntie.
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