Bureaucracy, a heavy hand at doing things and passing through too many channels, is to be found everywhere. While far less so in the private sector, which often lives or dies by efficiency, it is the bane of the public sector. It is so in every country but if there were an index to measure it, Malta would surely come first by a mile.

I said so many years ago to a seasoned minister when I was still cutting my teeth in politics as a teenage member of the Labour League of Youth in our Qormi village.

What are you there for if you don’t do something about it? I primly asked the worthy gentleman. Why are government departments manned by so many lazy people?

We depend on votes, he replied dismissively. You try to stamp it out should it ever be your turn. When my turn did come years later, I tried to put my youthful words into practice.

I liked to think that bureaucracy was substantially reduced in the ministries I was responsible for. From feedback I received after I left office and was no longer kowtowed too, it turned out that mine was so much wishful thinking. I had tried, but had only managed to wound the monster slightly.

All governments try to curb bureaucracy, no doubt about that, for the monster is ever present, feeding upon itself. But this government is, as far as I can remember, the only one to have specifically appointed a person to be in charge of cutting bureaucracy, of smoothing procedure and making them lighter.

I wondered how the brave appointee would go about his responsibilities; how, for instance, he would start off by identifying bureaucracy and cutting it, like the previous administration had hopefully promised to do. I confess I am still wondering.

Has bureaucracy diminished in the 16 months of this government, taking the public sector as a whole, now vastly bigger than the collection of government departments that existed when I threw my audacious barb at the pompous minister in my reach in the mid-50s?

I cannot tell directly, since I do no longer need to use the public sector much, unless one takes in the hospitals, where I have always found excellent care, and the water and electricity divisions, which are hard to get through to but then do their best.

But from what I hear and read, bureaucracy is alive and well, and living in many of its haunts in the public sector. There are also some public examples of its effect.

This government is, as far as I can remember, the only one to have specifically appointed a person to be in charge of cutting bureaucracy

Why, for instance, well into summer at the time of writing has the summer schedule for the public transport service not yet been published? Summer does not come along as a surprise.

Nor is it variable, like Good Friday and Ramadan. So what have those responsible at Transport Malta been doing?

They have a lot on their plate, what with the uncertainty over the future of public transport, the state of our roads and now the responsibility to act on road accidents if it is established that they occur because of the state of our roads.

Grant them a full load and wish them well. But surely, there is some tiny office where winter and summer schedules are drawn up well in advance of the actual arrival of the relevant equinox. So why the delay?

Go on to something to do with the very higher echelons. The appointments of those serving on the Malta Tourism Authority expired according to set schedule, one ridiculously tied to the start of summer and the peak tourist season.

The expiry was no secret, like it is established the moment we are born that one day we’ll die. Fixed appointments are even less of a secret. They run from date A to date B. So why weren’t the members of the new authority selected for appointment the moment the old one was due to end its term? The responsible minister keeps saying soon, and imminently. Yet, at the time of writing, nothing was done.

An excuse of sorts was given in a declaration that the authority was still functioning, though there was no board in force. That is as lame as pony which was shunted aside by a lorry.

That is not the point at all. The point is that the government should lead by example if the act of the public sector is to be improved.

Improvement does not mean bloating the sector when we are supposed to be slimming it where extra staff is not needed, as in the health and education sectors.

A third public area which offers scope for scrutiny regarding the way it works concerns the law courts. Justice now falls under Owen Bonnici, probably the best along with two or three ministers in the Cabinet.

He has embarked on a reforming agenda which is the government’s, but he executes it impressively. He is not there yet.

I have just received a court summons as a witness in a case involving a company where I am a director.

I was notified the date and told it was by the order of a magistrate whose name I could not decipher, and the case is included ‘in a list of cases’ which shall be heard on such and such a date at 9am.

That means I have to be at the law courts in advance of 9am to find out who the blessed magistrate is and where s/he sits; then I have to wait I don’t know for how long in jacket and tie in the peak of summer to be called.

I do not believe that is what Bonnici means by reform.

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