Our government is full of it and I wonder how they get away with it over and over, at taxpayers expense.
I've worked in jobs/places in which directives are non-negotiable but not always valid. Superiors come along, changes happen, as do the consequences of them, superiors get promoted and then leave...another comes in and it happens again. It's the way of it...and along the way, people suffer, costs rise and opportunity for those on the ground doing the work remain stagnan or decline. A familiar story elsewhere, not just governments either.