Why a pizza gets to your door before the police?

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Written by Isa Senkumba Friday, 30 July 2010 08:31

It will take you at least three weeks to meet face to face with a top government officer or the boss of certain institution. The first time you attempt to see the boss you will have to meet the junior gatekeeper who will then invite the senior gate keeper incase the former cannot handle your issue.

The later will keep you waiting while he rushes to the offices with your names just to inquire if you are on an appointment visit. The senior gatekeeper who prefers to be called the senior security officer will return only to advise you that the boss is out of office so you better try another day. This marks the end of day one.

After a few days you come back. This time you may not be delayed at the gate because the security officer at the gate has seen you before. They will immediately direct you to the reception where you must again disclose more information about your visit. It is sometimes in the best interest of the receptionist to inform him or her if issues to be discussed with the boss are official , personal or family business.

After giving the neaty gritty details of your visit he or she will tell you to come back another day since the boss will be going for a board meeting which is expected to last for a long time and the boss needs no interruptions.

The third time you report, there may be free movement right from the gate through the reception except at the secretary's office. Rumour has it that secretaries are always concubines and intimate friends to the bosses. If you are a female visitor trying to meet a male boss expect a cold reception from the secretary.

The secretary's office does not mince words. You will be asked if you have an appointment, your relationship with the boss incase you mentioned family matters as a reason for your coming and many other things.

After explaining yourself you can now be asked to wait for the boss to have his breakfast. Unfortunately, a few minutes to the end of breakfast a business associate or a colleague to the boss pops into the office before you. They will have a two hour chat after which they will leave the office together for a business lunch in town. As a matter of courtesy the secretary will tell you to come back another day.

Those of you who can exercise Christian patience, always waiting for the messiah to come without being disillusioned, you will be able to see the boss. My only worry is that if the issues to be discussed were urgent and could not stand the test of time your quest to meet the boss will have been turned irrelevant. That's the red-tape system.

Frankly speaking the only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency. To the bureaucrats procedure is everything and out comes are nothing.
A German sociologist Max Weber was the most important student of bureaucracy though he did not give an exact definition of what bureaucracy is.

This organizational system actually tends to break down operations into tasks in a chain to allow specialization. It is true that this kind of system enabled organizations to become successful basing on the fact that each employee knows precisely what their duties are within the organisation. But the dictatorship kind of leadership brings about poor inter personal relationships.

Ask a graduate or an undergraduate student from Makerere University to tell you what it takes to process an examination permit, renew an Identity Card, secure a transcript and many other documents. They will tell you these are some of the worst experiences in their lives. These services are centralized despite the University's high students population.

You will faint on the queue to get a stamp on your examination permit. Graduates have missed employment when the university fails to issue them transcripts on account that the issuing officer is on a vacation in South Africa or he went for further studies abroad. Those working in various offices are gods and goddesses who pay no attention to claiming students and punctuate this with abuses. You can miss graduation simply because the Hall Warden who kept your receipt died.

A bloated bureaucracy is inefficient, consuming unnecessary resources, slowing down process response times and creating inertia to innovation. Over dependence on one or a few individuals in the organisation who are known to pull strings and without whom work will be affected is one of the characteristics of bureaucracy.

Multiplication of administrative functions increases the paper work, routine and red-tape. Workers do not have the chance to exercise intelligent judgment since procedures are a written constitution to be followed to the letter. But orgnaisational challenges do not come standardized like the services the organisation offers. In order to thrive the organisation must readily adapt to changing circumstances to attend to changing challenges.

Bureauracy continues to affect the investment decisions of investors. Investor will put their money in countries where it takes one month to register a company instead of where it takes a year.

There is a thin line between bureaucracy and corruption. These are actually two sides of the same coin. An organisation with corrupt officers will deliberately complicate the delivery of services by being bureaucratic even if it means starting work late or being slow in whatever they do. When clients or customers get inconvenienced or find it hard to secure services from the organisation they will be tempted to give out bribes to get services delivered faster.

Government organizations and agencies are good at this. It is no wonder a pizza supplier gets to your door before the police if you made phone calls to these offices at the same time. They have the power and money; that's the problem. Giving money and power to government is like giving whisky and car keys to teenage boys.

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