Dear Editor,
It is evident that change takes place at a snail’s pace at government ministries mainly because there are no consequences for inefficiencies. Business inefficiencies lead to diminished profits/increased losses, a penalty to their management performance, whereas government inefficiencies are simply transferred to taxpayers or those who need access to its services hereinafter referred to as its “customers.” To illustrate, here are a few examples that I have personally experienced or which were brought to my attention.
The Guyana Revenue Authority will accept payment from employers submitting Pay As You Earn returns. But despite receiving a receipt for the amount of payment, one has to move to another window to “lodge” the return. Here, additional requirements are imposed. If operating under a Business Name, another receipt-type document is issued but if a Corporation, your return is required to be stamped with the company’s name. If the latter is not affixed, the return is rejected. It is “go and come back” time with no appreciation of time and travel costs to the “offending” employer. And for no good reason as a receipt was already issued. The cost of this inefficiency is transferred to the customer.
The second example is that ministries procuring from local producers require a company-stamped invoice and when payment is made, a company-stamped receipt. It doesn’t matter that the invoice is on a company letterhead. Without the company-stamped invoice, payment will not be made. “Go and come back” time for the unsuspecting supplier. In addition to the stamped receipt, a letter of authorisation to uplift the payment in cheque form is a further requirement as if a cheque made out to Company X and collected by Person Y can be deposited in any account other than Company X’s. These inefficiencies are borne by the “unwary” supplier.
The third example involves operations at the Guyana Post Office mail delivery system, which starts work at 7am. Unfortunately, Customs, needed for mailing packages overseas, does not begin work until 8am. Accordingly, delivery clerks are idle during this lapse, an inefficiency borne by taxpayers, and customers must waste their time waiting. In addition, the guard, whose function is to manage ingress into the mail delivery room, sends customers away if they are not in possession of a roll of adhesive tape required to re-tape packages opened by the various authorities assembled there including CANU, despite this not being a posted requirement. Then one has to deal with the overzealous CANU inspectors, who, despite having a scanning machine available, takes a knife to sealed packages, assuring that customers abroad to whom the mailings are directed, would receive a damaged product. Why would consumers want to buy anything from Guyanese suppliers?
For the fourth example, one of the main functions of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) is the payment of pensions to its contributors after a specified age. It does this by issuing pension coupon-books periodically. To obtain, one has to visit an NIS office and in the case of the Georgetown Brickdam Office, the wait time is about two hours. Wouldn’t societal costs be reduced by simply mailing these books? But no one in government cares as it is someone else’s time and money.
The fifth example involves the Commercial Registry. The Business Registration reapplication is a process involving a visit to the office, payment involving a hand-written receipt (yes, hand-written in this day and age), and a return visit to collect a stamped copy of the old certificate. If re-registering multiple businesses, say four, this may result in eight visits to the office to lodge and collect registration certificates depending on expiration dates. The Registry will not accept payment for these multiple applications simultaneously although this would improve government’s cash flow, nor mail out certificates which would reduce congestion at the office and reduce its customers’ cost in travel time. Again the “go and come back” mentality of government workers.
These are just some examples that I’m aware of and undoubtedly, they are a small sample of the profligacy experienced by normal people trying to access government services. It is testament to the inefficient ways of government operations under the management of incompetents. It will only cease with proper evaluation systems for people put in charge of managing the various government departments and when they are properly held responsible for reducing cost to both the government and its customers. A sealed complaint box for every agency and accessed only by a separate entity to address government inefficiencies, should be compulsory. And we must pressure our politicians to do better by reducing these inefficiencies thereby increasing value to taxpayers, whose funding government depends on.
Yours faithfully,
Louis Holder
