End confusing rules to improve bureaucracy

By D. Chandramouli

JAKARTA (JP): "How many bureaucrats does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to assure us that everything possible is being done while the other screws the bulb into a water tap."

This joke published in the Reader's Digest many years ago came to mind when reading the latest report of the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC).

Is the bureaucrat a servant of the government (read "politicians in power") or of the people? Quite often, the public perceive bureaucracy as "the art of making the possible impossible." Over time, the word "bureaucracy" has become synonymous with procrastination.

According to PERC's report, the bureaucracy in India has been rated 9 on a scale of one to 10, with zero being the best grade possible -- though this is hard to believe. Indonesia, incidentally, scored 8.

Years ago I was employed in a government department, which handled the disbursement of pensions to civil servant retirees. There was one requirement that called for pensioners to produce, once a year, a "survival certificate" signed by a government authorized medical practitioner. We insisted on this certificate even if pensioners physically presented themselves to collect their pensions -- rules were Rules with a capital 'R'.

If someone could not submit the said certificate, they simply did not exist. If we paid the pensions without obtaining the certificate, serious audit objections were in store from the controller and auditor general. Mercifully, this stringent rule has been subsequently abolished.

For sure, there was no serious corruption in those "good old" days, except that people would speak of some instances of "hand- outs" in the revenue department.

In India, the deeply entrenched bureaucracy and concomitant red tape have been a British legacy. The term "red tape" itself is derived from the fastening of departmental bundles of documents in Britain. The mind-set of the system-bound Indian bureaucrats come from years of conditioning by centuries of British rule.

Frustrated foreign investors maintain that the classic Indian "three steps forward, two steps back" approach to everything still remain, despite the liberalization efforts. However, many resident Indians opine that reforms have indeed borne fruit and there have been vast improvements in recent years, in the railway booking offices, elections commission, customs and passport offices, telephone services etc.

Generally, decision-making in the government machinery belonged to the upper echelons. Only in the government, is decision-making "delegated upwards" constantly -- "abdicating" responsibility or attributing "empowerment" to the boss.

In an answer to a query from superiors, a bureaucrat in a public works department once wrote in a file the following, "To the best of our knowledge, we have no knowledge!"

Government jobs ensured security of employment. Usually, the erring civil servants could only be punished by a transfer to some other post or region, without any cuts in their existing salary or perquisites.

Consistency is a great virtue in government offices. "Turn the file and learn the work" -- it is as simple as that, for any new entrant to the government. On a previous occasion, if a request from a member of the public had been turned down, for whatever reason, a new application would surely meet the same fate.

There are two sides to a coin. Why should bureaucrats always be ridiculed? Is it fair to blame them totally? Government servants are, after all, bound by government rules, which, quite often, impede better bureaucratic judgment.

Civil servants can't be expected to "drive the car with the hand brake on". With a pittance of a salary, how could they be enthused to become proactive people? They must enforce government rules to the letter. Is it always possible for them to get behind the spirit of the rules? Obviously, they can't be the judge and the executor at the same time.

Members of parliaments and legislatures, by virtue of their proximity to their constituents, symbolized by their electoral victories, should be expected to know the "pulse of the people" and frame laws and rules to be as user-friendly and simple as possible.

They should also review all existing policies and programs, rules and regulations, procedures, forms, acts, etc. periodically and remove, from the statute, all unnecessary, obsolete and confusing government controls. Surely, that is one way bureaucrats could be expected to render better public service.

Ultimately, members of the public have to be the "watch dogs" over the bureaucracy. As T.N. Chaturvedi, an Indian Member of Parliament rightly said: "Democracy does not guarantee good governance but it makes good governance possible. It is guaranteed by the citizens."

The writer is a freelance contributor in Jakarta.