The answer is probably because I am stupid. That is if it is stupid to care about someone more than they care about you. In this case, that someone is the Government of Lesotho.
The Government makes it difficult for me to pay my car tax. Occasionally I have heard that it is easy, but most stories suggest it takes at least half a day of queuing. Thankfully, there are people who you can pay to do this for you.
I didn't want to take half a day of work to do this. I am pretty busy at the moment and didn't want to let down the Govt. So I paid someone to do it for me. Unfortunately, it seems that this is unrequited. I say that because the Govt, when taken as a unit, does not seem to care about making life easy for me to pay my car tax. Why should I care about it when it doesn't care about me?
There are several interesting expansions:
1/ Lesotho is a democratic country. If the Govt as a whole represents the will of the people, then the choice has been taken to ensure admin is very difficult (and presumably get lots of nice paper records in exchange which is very useful). And I am working for the very people who choose that that admin be difficult. The flip side of this choice should not really be that I pay someone to do the admin for me but that I work less and take time off work to do it (as most people have to).
2/ What if special interest groups are keeping this bureaucracy and it does not represent the will of the people? That is a problem. We need to find a way to stop this. And it is true to some extent. Sometimes people like make sure things pass through them to prevent people from doing things without their knowing (lack of trust?).
3/ But no one seems to care much about inefficiencies. I am currently sat in a meeting in which (at the start) around 15 people were jointly writing one document rather slowly. It would be funny if that hadn't taken up (so far) around 45 person hours. It could probably have been done very differently and taken up no more than maybe 10 person hours. Lesotho has lost the productivity of one week of work of a highly qualified person this afternoon - that means less to consume for everyone and more poverty as a result.
3/ Should civil servants get free car tax? If they take an afternoon off work to get it done and if the revenue to Govt from the tax is less than their work would have been worth, is it not worth thinking about?
4/ How about getting rid of car tax? Add on extra tax to petrol instead. Easier to collect, more efficient, less bureaucracy and fairer - those who use the roads most, pay most.
The Government makes it difficult for me to pay my car tax. Occasionally I have heard that it is easy, but most stories suggest it takes at least half a day of queuing. Thankfully, there are people who you can pay to do this for you.
I didn't want to take half a day of work to do this. I am pretty busy at the moment and didn't want to let down the Govt. So I paid someone to do it for me. Unfortunately, it seems that this is unrequited. I say that because the Govt, when taken as a unit, does not seem to care about making life easy for me to pay my car tax. Why should I care about it when it doesn't care about me?
There are several interesting expansions:
1/ Lesotho is a democratic country. If the Govt as a whole represents the will of the people, then the choice has been taken to ensure admin is very difficult (and presumably get lots of nice paper records in exchange which is very useful). And I am working for the very people who choose that that admin be difficult. The flip side of this choice should not really be that I pay someone to do the admin for me but that I work less and take time off work to do it (as most people have to).
2/ What if special interest groups are keeping this bureaucracy and it does not represent the will of the people? That is a problem. We need to find a way to stop this. And it is true to some extent. Sometimes people like make sure things pass through them to prevent people from doing things without their knowing (lack of trust?).
3/ But no one seems to care much about inefficiencies. I am currently sat in a meeting in which (at the start) around 15 people were jointly writing one document rather slowly. It would be funny if that hadn't taken up (so far) around 45 person hours. It could probably have been done very differently and taken up no more than maybe 10 person hours. Lesotho has lost the productivity of one week of work of a highly qualified person this afternoon - that means less to consume for everyone and more poverty as a result.
3/ Should civil servants get free car tax? If they take an afternoon off work to get it done and if the revenue to Govt from the tax is less than their work would have been worth, is it not worth thinking about?
4/ How about getting rid of car tax? Add on extra tax to petrol instead. Easier to collect, more efficient, less bureaucracy and fairer - those who use the roads most, pay most.
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