Idiocies of our bureaucracy

It is something I learned the hard way as a student in Egypt decades ago. I made the mistake of forgetting that lesson last week.

I calculated that since it was likely to be a slow week, most people being away for yet more public holidays, it would make sense to attempt to deal with the various “official” outstanding tasks, such as opening a bank account, applying for my ancient mother’s pension and getting my TT passport renewed. I should have remembered which country I am in and just how poor our operating systems are.

In Cairo, after almost making myself sick trying to accomplish too much and trying to take on the bureaucracy, the likes of which I had never previously encountered, I learned that one week was necessary for each chore that involved any ministry or State agency. It is fair to say that things are only marginally better in this country.

Passport Office: Having gone the day before to enquire about what was needed to renew my passport — different from the website info — I arrived at 8.30 am but I was too late to submit my form. It was irrelevant that 7-9 am is the allotted time for submissions. On that morning too many people had come, so at 7 am they stopped taking in applications. I protested (nicely) and was asked to enter and sit “facing the wall” until the supervisor turned up.

Suddenly, I heard, “Excuse me, excuse me. You, where yuh going?” The security guard who shouted this question stood jauntily with one elbow on the counter. “Yuh not allowed in here dressed like that.” I was very well dressed, but he disagreed because my arms were uncovered. Arms are offensive in all offices of the Ministry of National Security and also at the NLCB HQ. I protested (less nicely) that some man had obviously invented that abhorrently moralistic law, since no mature woman would.

It is too long a story but I think I will get my passport in two months’ time.

As I was leaving ,an elegant woman stood screaming, feet apart, frozen as if giving birth.

The room hushed as she wailed, “Why are you all so stupid?” It was her third day there and now she was barred from collecting her passport because her arms were bare. I lent her my wrap and she was back out in five minutes.

Pension office: One overworked clerk sat behind the counter, attending to a room full of unhappy people, no application forms in sight, adding needless pressure on everyone. “Yuh have her ID?” Why would I carry my mother’s ID just to collect a form? That is the rule.

Surprised that forms are highly sensitive documents, I went home to get the ID. Another clerk copied it, completed some paperwork and gave me another form to take to the NIB office in St James. I must now return for a third time to the pension office to submit the application.

I hope my mother outlives the duration of the process.

Bank account: Two different banks are too rich to need my business: “Come back as you need an appointment,” even fully armed with required documents.

What about some poor, car-less or physically challenged person? Our service industries care not for the client or citizen but are driven by mindless, paper-driven, hierarchical systems that drain all energy from intelligent workers and turn them into automata that cannot improve anything because they cannot see what is wrong or imagine a better way.

That traumatised woman who lamented returning where bare arms offend, is right: we should cry for that loss of intelligence.

St u p id systems can only h a v e one effect.