more likely we just have a bunch of on-dole hack political appointees with a 'let it rot' point of view about infrastructure and they just F-d up big time, and showed themselves to be heedless and callow.
there is no grand '15 minute Island' plan in most of their minds. They want cash and perks and status and a free life, and they have high paying jobs for which they are ill suited and they failed catastrophically at doing their jobs.
no conspiracy, just a cult of incompetents who figured out how to get to the top of the heep and assumed the 'do you know who I am' point of view.