Bureaucracy gets tongue-tied with red tape

PLEASE don’t ask the government for a definition of red tape, because it’s just too much paperwork.

Ask a scientist, and you get seven different definitions. Ask Trade and Industry, and you fall asleep reading the reply. Ask a printer, and you get efficiency. Ask the police, and they’ll get back to you.

DA MPs asked departments for their definitions of red tape and what they’re doing to reduce it. Nobody used the same definition, and the explanations for fixing it ranged from nothing to pages of explanations.

Science and Technology officials got bogged down in red tape trying to define it, and came up with seven different definitions from the department and entities, all largely the same.

The Department of Trade and Industry referred to “rules, regulations and/or bureaucratic procedures and processes which are excessively complex and which impose unnecessary delay(s), inaction and/or costs which exceed their benefits” as part of a 2 388-word response explaining, in lengthy bureaucratic terms, what it’s doing about it (although this was the most useful explanation on how that red tape is getting chopped).

Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown referred to “time-consuming, lengthy systems for issues that are simple to resolve”.

The Government Printing Works said it “might define red tape as bureaucratic processes that hinder and slow the work” but that it didn’t use this term “as it is very imprecise” and it doesn’t encounter much red tape.

“The department does not define red tape but certainly believes in business efficiency,” said Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom.

The police are still thinking about it.

“The matter is receiving attention at various levels as it is not only confined to one level, therefore a comprehensive response will soon be furnished to you which will attempt to cover all areas of concern,” said Police Minister Nathi Nhleko.

Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti was the most efficient at cutting through the red tape of the question.

“Red tape is an old bureaucratic culture; it can never be entirely gotten rid of,” said Nkwinti succinctly and declined, on that basis, to answer any questions about how the department was getting rid of it.