That reminds me of a moment in maybe 90ies when somebody in the local government over here was advocating to close the weather institute because you can just get weather news from TV anyway. That at least had a clear motive -- institute in question was located in a very nice location with a view and there was a line of developers forming to bribe said official and his colleges to get it for pennies and sell some nice apartments there.

Institutional collapse is a thing.