Officialdom is choking us

It’s a characteristic of a failing society. As government transparency and accountability decrease, bureaucratic pettiness and red tape increase. In days of yore, when on Heritage Day we still gathered around the tribal braai fires, the tales would flow thick and fast. Tales of passport snafus, identity document cock-ups.

The lockdown may have put an end to such mass ritualistic sharing of misery, but it has inspired government employees. Clever new ways have been found to shirk work, frustrate the citizenry and score some bucks on the side.

In Gauteng, Limpopo and the Western Cape, motor licence renewal can be done online. In the rest of the country, one has to visit a regional licensing office. Since it was almost impossible to renew motor vehicle licences during the past six months, the authorities sensibly granted a nonpenalty renewal extension. This ended on Tuesday.

Those who have not yet renewed will incur late payment costs of 10% a month. One also faces a R1,000 traffic fine if caught driving with an expired disk. This would seem to be a carrot-stick scenario of the kind employed everywhere in the world. Except that in SA, where state structures are at best creaky and at worst manned by lazy and uncooperative officials, its almost always a lose-lose situation for the hapless citizen.

To start with, it’s been difficult to access licensing offices. It’s a case of turning up and queueing and official hours of business are, in many cases, only a vague approximation. Payment has to be in cash. While it is understandable that cheques are not accepted, inexplicably, neither are bank cards.

My local licensing office shut intermittently for weeks during lockdown. It would then open for a couple of days, only to again close if anyone in the building was diagnosed with Covid-19. The building would then have to be “sanitised” over a 48-hour period. Such “deep cleaning” is a complete waste of time and resources.

There is little medical evidence to support the practice. One might as well hire a sangoma to sprinkle herbs and chant incantations. Yet the unions, through wilful ignorance, insist. And employers, through spinelessness, comply. It’s also often a scam.

The entities that win state tenders are very often not registered, not paying tax and charging exorbitant amounts. Motor licensing used to be simple. One would get a renewal reminder through the post a month before the licence expired.

If there had been no change in ownership, one simply sent off a cheque and the new disc was posted back. But renewal reminders are no longer sent out. I’ve had two explanations for this: they can’t afford the postage and it’s pointless since the post office is barely operational. The licensing debacle is echoed throughout our officialdom.

Yet government workers are, proportionately, paid more generously than their private sector equivalents and have absolute job security. Nor is the private sector is any better. Something simple like opening an account can swallow a morning. Beware all these officious bastards.

It’s not just that they are infuriating, it’s that they clog the arteries of administration and commerce. They’re downright dangerous to the health of the nation.

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