My recent adventure with obtaining an Apostille (form of certification) from the Ministry of Justice in Cyprus is the main reason why I am writing this post today. Basically it is to concentrate on the need of a more efficient public service system. This is essential if we want to save money and not turn up like Greece.
My mission of the day was to obtain an apostille on a power of attorney document. The steps required to do that are as follows (in brackets are the steps I actually did):
1. Write and sign the power of attorney document. (I went to the Ministry of Justice without doing that first since I had no idea what an Apostille is)
2. Take the document to the local officer to certify that your signature is true (I went to the Ministry of Justice without doing that before because I did not know)
3. Take the document to the District Officer to certify that the signature of the local officer is true (I went for the 3rd time to the Ministry of Justice after obtaining first certification only to tell me that I need to go to the District Officer)
4. Take the document to the ministry of Justice to obtain Apostille (I did that after spending 4 hours the first day and 1.30 hours the second day)
Such an inefficient process that if you try making a process map out of it, you would only find one Value-Added activity and 3 Non-Value added activities. No need to mention that at any of these stages ANYBODY ASKED ME TO PRESENT THEM WITH AN ID to prove that the name written on the document is mine.
The government is paying 5 people (local officer, district officer secretary, 3 people at ministry of justice) to carry out an activity that could very easily done by 2 people. One to check your ID and one to put a stamp on your document.
Furthermore, this process cost me and hundreds of other citizens hours of their productive time. A process full of wasteful activities that could be eliminated. Why is it so hard for the public sector to proceed into changes? Why do they have to be so inefficient and unproductive?
If it is so hard for them to make changes here is one thing I suggest: Close everything down and privatize everything. I am sure there are many enterpreneurs that would be happy to open businesses that will help citizens to carry out their tasks more efficiently. The force of competition will not allow them to procrastinate, lag or lack! The force of competition will force them to centralize all the processes whether that means putting all human resources in one building or using a central computer server.
As easy as 1,2,3. Saves money from the public sector, saves our time.
Posted by Alkis 
