DeepFreez

Ok, I am not going to moan and bitch about how bad the department of transports admin is (ok I just did.)  Instead I am going to try and solve the problem.  No, not by firebombing the licensing offices, although that might actually help.

Step 1:  Make sure you have the manpower in the office you need.  Why is it that at one office there is a queue of people stretching into the parking lot with only two clerks serving people, but in another office there are three clerks attending to no one?  Some simple planning should be all that is needed to fix this.  The office managers should at the very least get some training in basic planning.  I am prepared to let my tax money be spent on that type of training.

Step 2: In this day and age, it should be possible for one office to access a single source of information wherever they are.  This would obviate the need for people to pay any fees or fines at one specific office.  If all the offices knows from the central source that I owe R186.00 for my car registration, any one of them could accept my payment.  And don't tell me its a problem with infrastructure.  Every office has computers in it already.  Use them!

Step 3: We need more payment options.  As things stand, I have to either mail them a check, or go to the one office I am assigned.  No online payment options (EasyPay for instance) and no way to even do a direct bank transfer.  No, its either cash or check.  And how archaic is the check option!

So to summarize: train the office managers to plan their resources better, spread the load by allowing things to be done at various offices and eliminate the need to go to one of the offices in the first place.

Now the question begs, why has none of this been done?  Well here is my theory. 

Office managers are promoted to the point of incompetence.  This is something that you will see in any government bureaucracy.  You worked in this office for the last 10 years, so eventually you are the oldest and you kind of have to be promoted.  You end up being a managers without the skills you need.  If this were the private sector the person would have been let go or an outside manager appointed.

A specific office has a vested interest in not cooperating with others to give a better service.  Better service is perceived as meaning "harder work" especially in government bureaucracies.  The concept of "work smarter not harder" is probably too modern or just not attainable with the available personnel (how's that for a veiled slur).  Further more it becomes harder to hide corruption if there is large scale cooperation and coordination.  All the money skimmed off transactions would end up with the larger more organized operations.

With fewer cash transactions, the opportunity for petty theft is also reduced which might cause the repo man to visit some of the clerks.

Skilled manpower, cooperation and streamlined procedures...  I guess getting a check book and writing a check and mailing it is a more likely route to success.

# posted by DeepFreez @ 16:36