Browsing through local newspapers gives us more than our share of news as well as more than a few surprises. In the unusual news sections we read every day funny — or in any case supposedly funny — stories about official mistakes and blunders. Most of these items reflect accurately what we face in our daily lives, and they shed light on our desire to take things easy and assume good intentions when mistakes are made. But can we afford to carry on living like this if we hope to change or improve at some point?
Examples of what I am talking about abound. One of them concerns a Saudi woman doctor who finally got her own ID card. She told me her joy lasted only a few seconds; then she saw that on the line which detailed her educational level, the entry read “illiterate”. Now the woman needed, from the place where she works, a document stating the kind of job she does. She included that paper along with others in the application for the ID. Apparently the person processing her application failed to notice all the information and decided she was illiterate — an illiterate doctor working in a government hospital.
Another example involves a child who received a traffic ticket. A Sudanese man at the airport who was about to leave for Sudan was told by authorities that he had to pay a fine because his son — who in fact is one year old — had incurred a fine for parking in a restricted area. The poor man had no choice but to pay the fine so he would not miss his flight.
A third tale: A young woman was issued a passport where the job entry read: “Divorced”. On another woman’s passport the job was “widow”. The woman went back to the office and somewhat sarcastically informed the official: “This is not my job. I do not support myself by marrying and then killing my husbands.”
If some people take these things lightly, others don’t even bother to argue. One woman was prevented from traveling abroad unless she paid a fine of SR450 for speeding and not wearing a seat belt. In spite of the well-known fact that she is not allowed to drive in the Kingdom, her husband simply paid the fine so that they would not miss their flight. They felt that argument was fruitless and paid up.
What these bits of news say is that whoever introduced computers in government offices needs to go back and train people how to use them properly. If mistakes happen — and they do and are normal — we expect someone to look at them, think and correct what is wrong rather than levying an unjust fine on someone. In the cases I have cited, the mistakes were glaring; the person in charge seemed to be in a trance or, even worse, believes that what was wrong was right.
The sad part is that these news items are seen as funny bits to cheer you up. In fact, they reflect a total lack of responsibility and a shocking laziness. Both of these are major reasons for many of our problems here in the Kingdom. How many times, for example, is the information on a passport exactly correct? There is always something wrong — a misspelled name or an incorrect date. And since these are official papers, they are accepted as absolutely correct no matter how absolutely wrong they are.
In the past year I have heard of people who had to retire years before they should have just because some clerk had put an incorrect birth date on their ID. Some of them applied for an extension so they could work a few more years instead of being forced to retire. Naturally there are those who will say that as the people are old, they should retire and besides, the system was backward and primitive when they began work. Perhaps so — but what is the excuse of those who have computers in front of them, who are supposed to be educated and trained to do a job? The answer seems always to be that we are obliged to live with the status quo.
