Bureaucracy and bureaucrats frustrate all people everywhere. We are at present praying for the end of the war on terrorism so we can declare war on bureaucracy. In my opinion, the war on bureaucracy is every bit as important as the war on terrorism. And in fact, bureaucratic delays are a kind of terrorism though of course not of a dangerous or life-threatening kind. I have collected some tales of bureaucracy and though they occurred many years ago, we are all familiar with what they indicate.
- I was a member of the Committee for Settling Commercial Disputes in Jeddah and an economist from the Ministry of Commerce was assigned to the committee. One day at a committee meeting we found to our surprise that most of the cases were about to be finalized. Interestingly, the economist suggested that we slow down since, according to him, if all the cases were dealt with, we would have nothing to do. And if we were seen to have nothing to do by those above us, we would soon be out of a job. No doubt the economist was right but I still think of him as a saboteur.
- In the Jeddah branch of the Ministry of Commerce, there used to be a department headed by a supervisor with a very self-important attitude. In fact, he did have power since he forwarded documents to Riyadh. His job consisted in merely receiving papers and complaints which he then sent to the capital. One day, I collected my courage and walked into his office where I asked him why there was always a delay in getting information to Riyadh. I observed that those who had submitted the paperwork might one day complain to the minister. His bluntly characteristic response was: “Delay and frustration give us importance.” Nothing, I am sorry to say, has changed.
- The last story was told by Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, the present Saudi ambassador to the UK. “On my first day in office as minister of health, an urgent telegram arrived with a royal order to treat a citizen whose left eye was not right. In fact, the person was complaining about problems in his right eye and not his left. The clerk, a conscientious slave to bureaucracy, would do nothing until he had received another royal order telling him what to do. The matter soon came to my attention and seeing the clerk’s hesitation and confusion as ridiculous, I directed him to treat the left eye and the right eye and to do so immediately. The patient was thus treated without waiting for another royal order.
