Anti-bureaucracy initiative immediately generates substantial bureaucracy
Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Streamlining Program Launches With Application Process More Complex Than Anything It Replaces
MANILA, PHILIPPINES — A government bureau dedicated to reducing red tape has announced an ambitious new streamlining initiative, which citizens can access by completing just seventeen separate forms, obtaining four notarized signatures, and visiting six different offices, a process officials describe as the first step toward a simpler, less bureaucratic future.
“We are committed to cutting red tape,” declared Director Salvador Mendoza of the Bureau of Bureaucratic Reduction at the launch. “Our new streamlining program will make government services faster and simpler for everyone. To enroll in the program, citizens simply need to complete the enrollment package, which consists of seventeen forms, have four of them notarized, secure endorsements from three separate offices, and submit everything in person, in triplicate, during the designated submission window. It could not be easier. This is what reducing bureaucracy looks like.”
The Anti-Bureaucracy Bureaucracy
According to the Institute for Administrative Studies, the program has achieved a perfect irony. “The Bureau of Bureaucratic Reduction has created, as its first act, a substantial new bureaucracy,” explained Dr. Conrado Salazar. “The process to access the red-tape-reduction program is more complex than most of the processes it aims to simplify. Seventeen forms, multiple notarizations, six office visits. To reduce bureaucracy, citizens must first navigate a new and formidable bureaucracy. The cure has become a more severe case of the disease. It is a masterpiece of self-defeating governance, an anti-bureaucracy initiative that is itself the most bureaucratic thing anyone has ever seen.”
Citizens attempting to enroll in the streamlining program reported being overwhelmed. “I wanted to join the program that makes things simpler,” said applicant Gloria Fernandez, 43, surrounded by forms. “And to join it, I have to fill out seventeen forms. Seventeen. Get four notarized. Visit six offices. It is the most complicated thing I have ever done. To access the simplicity program, I must endure extraordinary complexity. By the time I finish enrolling in the red-tape reduction, I will have generated more red tape than I have encountered in years. The program designed to save me from bureaucracy is drowning me in it.”
The Self-Defeating Design
Experts noted that the program’s bureaucratic enrollment process undermined its entire purpose. “The goal is to reduce bureaucracy,” said Dr. Salazar. “But the enrollment process adds bureaucracy. So a citizen who completes the program ends up having navigated seventeen forms to access a service that might, eventually, save them from some other forms. The net effect on bureaucracy may well be negative. They have added more forms than they will remove. The Bureau of Bureaucratic Reduction is, through its enrollment process alone, one of the largest generators of new bureaucracy in the government. It is reducing red tape by producing enormous quantities of it.”
Bureau officials defended the complex enrollment process as necessary. “The forms are essential,” explained Mendoza. “We need to verify each applicant’s identity, eligibility, and need for streamlining. This requires documentation. The seventeen forms ensure that only qualified citizens access the simplicity program. Yes, it is a complex process. But it is a complex process in service of simplicity. The bureaucracy of enrollment is the foundation upon which future simplicity will be built. You cannot have streamlining without first establishing who deserves to be streamlined, and that requires forms. Many forms. Seventeen, to be precise.”
The Forms Multiply
Reports indicate that the enrollment bureaucracy has already begun to expand. “They added an eighteenth form last week,” said Fernandez. “A form to confirm that you completed the other seventeen forms. And there is talk of a nineteenth, to verify the eighteenth. The forms are multiplying. The program designed to reduce paperwork is generating paperwork at an alarming rate. Each form seems to require another form to validate it. I started this process to escape bureaucracy, and now I am trapped in an expanding maze of documentation, each form spawning the next, the simplicity program receding ever further behind a growing wall of paperwork.”
Experts warned that the enrollment bureaucracy might become self-perpetuating. “There is a risk,” said Dr. Salazar, “that the process of enrolling in the red-tape reduction program becomes so complex that it requires its own red-tape reduction program, which would itself have a complex enrollment process, requiring another reduction program, and so on. We could see an infinite regress of anti-bureaucracy bureaucracies, each generating more red tape in its effort to reduce red tape, the whole system collapsing under the weight of its own forms. The Bureau of Bureaucratic Reduction may, in the end, require a Bureau of Bureaucratic Reduction Reduction. And that, too, will have seventeen forms.”
The Streamlined Future
The streamlining program continues its rollout, with citizens navigating its formidable enrollment process in hopes of someday accessing the promised simplicity. “We are building a less bureaucratic government,” declared Mendoza, standing before a wall of enrollment forms that towered over the applicants struggling to complete them. “One form at a time. Seventeen forms, to be exact. The future is simple, and to reach it, citizens need only complete this straightforward enrollment process and obtain the necessary notarizations and endorsements. Simplicity is within reach.” The citizens, buried in the paperwork required to access the paperwork-reduction program, continued to fill out form after form, chasing a simplicity that grew more distant with each new document, victims of a bureaucracy that had been created, with perfect irony, to save them from bureaucracy. For genuine background, see the Official Gazette of the Philippines, and for further detail, the World Bank covers the real subject.
More nonsense at The Beaverton.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/