YES WE CAN, BUT WILL WE?

President Barack Obama has left.

What did he leave us with?

Did he pump us full of gas – as in hysteric euphoria and an overdose of sentimentality? Or did his rousing speeches, inspirational, nay extraordinary, presence, and symbolic choice of Ghana instil a genuine sense of awakening?

A few days following his departure, as if on cue, Ghana has begun signing and “ratifying” international loan and grant agreements with gusto, embracing “self-imposed conditions” and, in chest pounding bravado, insisting on a new era of cooperation with multilateral institutions and multinational corporations (Kosmos better behaves!)

This brief note is not to examine these matters in any detail. I just want to recount a personal experience I recently had with the Public Sector that makes me highly doubtful whether enough is changing in that part of our national life to warrant optimism. I believe my experience is relevant because one of the key commitments our country's political elite has announced in recent times is “reform of the public sector”. The public relations have been quite sleek and almost successful in suppressing the customary cynicism most of us show towards ambitious government pledges, regardless which party is in power.

Imagine my amazement, therefore, when on Friday the 17th of February 2009, I arrived at the Registrar General's Department near Tema Station to pursue a few inquiries on behalf of a client organisation. You will probably recall that long before “public sector reform” became a byword of government PR, Registrar General's Department has always been touted as a success story of client services renewal in the public sector. I must hasten to add that this note is not aimed at bashing the management of the Registrar General Department. I am actually somewhat acquainted with the Registrar himself, a fine man by every measure. I have all the evidence I need to conclude that worse happens in most other departments and agencies. I am highlighting the Registrar General incident because it is very fresh in my memory, more so since the encounter was personal.

So, as I said, I got to their relatively well-appointed offices at 1:00 PM. The main hall for business is neatly segmented into different sections. “Forms Purchases”, “Fees Payments”, “Enquiries”, “Client Services”, “Registry”, “Customer Services”, Estate”, etc.

My business there was to retrieve certified true copies of two sets of registration documents on behalf of aforementioned client. Unsure where to go, I approached one of the counters and was promptly referred to the “Records” section. After a bit of waiting, the officer in charge, one “Auntie Florence”, explained to me that she had to perform a search in the records depository for the two sets of files.

30 minutes later she returned with one file and the explanation that the other file could not be located. I found this perplexing. Her clarification was that the other file was probably still being “sorted” and will get to the depository once it had been so “sorted”. Naturally, the explanation only succeeded in further muddying the waters since the two entities in question had been registered around the same time nearly a year ago.

I asked if I could be given official communication confirming that said document was not available in order that I could advise my client. She responded that I needed to submit an official letter for that to happen. At this point, the clock struck 1 PM. I went away from the counter to prepare said official letter and returned to “Records” later upon securing the precious “official letter”.

Records said the letter had to be lodged at “Registry”, so I proceeded to that section and begun the long wait for an officer to show up. After about 45 minutes, I felt frustration building up, so I returned to Records and inquired about the possibility of receiving certified copies for the document that had been successfully retrieved from the depository (remember that the initial request was for two sets of copies).

The clock struck 2PM.
I was advised to proceed to “Forms Purchases” to obtain the necessary forms. Here too, it appeared that this simple process was far from straightforward. I was tossed back and forth between Records and Forms regarding what the appropriate form should be and then finally dumped on “Customer Service”.

Customer Service insisted that the procedure under question required no special forms and that all I needed to do was to explain clearly that I was just after copies of records already on file. Alas, at the Forms counter, this new wisdom proved insufficient to abate the confusion, prompting the officer at post to call in a security man to convey the exact concerns of the section to Customer Service. It was only after Customer Service had risen from her seat and walked across the hall to Forms did it become obvious all of a sudden that in actual fact there was no issue of forms, appropriate or inappropriate, involved at all, and all that was really required was for me to proceed to “Fees Payment” and pay GHC6.0 for the three sets of copies needed for the 2 sets of registration documents (I was paying in anticipation of the lost file being found).

As you might have guessed each episode of “to and fro” had involved a significant amount of waiting in between sessions, so that, by this time, the clock dial was reading 3:30PM.

Having duly paid for the service, I returned to Customer Service and inquired what the next step should be. I was advised to return to Records, which I did. Records promptly sent me back to Customer Service. Customer Service demanded to see Records in person. Records – still “Auntie Florence” – attended to Customer Service's call. It was resolved that Registry had to be involved. Records returned to post as Customer Service narrated to yours truly how truly complex the business of retrieving documents was. I asked what would happen now. I was advised to return to Auntie Florence and ask whether the Typing Pool had to be contacted.

Aunty Florence insisted on Registry “booking” the payment first. All this while, neither hair nor hide of Registry had been seen. So I turned to Estate, which is next door to Registry and inquired where her neighbour had gone, and, after a brief conversation, was duly informed that Registry had nothing to do with the matter: it's Record's call, Sir.

Knackered and feeling highly inadequate I lumbered back to Customer Service who asked me to get hold of Records and bring her in.

Unfortunately, Records had packed and gone home – a productive day in the life of your average public sector employee; who am I to begrudge her? I asked Customer Service whether she could hold on to the payment receipts and sort the issue out on the Monday next, but she refused, citing serious security and political repercussions.

The clock struck 5:00 PM.
I walked out with my tail between my legs, angry more that I had missed my next appointment at the bank than at the mess I had encountered at the Registrar General's.

The only consolation I could think of was that in 4 hours I had not merely identified but experienced all the factors responsible for underperformance in our public sector.

Talk of “turfism”, “poor definition of tasks, roles and process”, “undue emphasis on ritual division of labour”, “client insensitivity”, “a total lack of targets”, “high incentives for graft because of outmoded documentation and record keeping practices”, “low empowerment of middle management”, “poorly streamlined enquiry and complaint referral systems', “pure cluelessness” etc. etc., and you are talking of “public sector reform”.

I hope they are paying those consultants to fix these well-known bottlenecks, not to regale us with tales of how enthrallingly awful the mess is. I can do that for free.

***Bright B. Simons is affiliated with IMANI Centre for Policy & Education.***