Little things mean a lot

Michael Witter, Guest Columnist

There is a lot the Government can do to ease the pressure of the economic hard times on the people. Two high-impact actions that come to mind immediately are to improve the customer service in government agencies and to insist on discipline on the roads.

Our leaders are surely aware of the disrespect taxpayers feel when they do business with the collectorates, and the frustration of long waits for no apparent good reason, and worse, while the staff appear to be doing nothing important or even job-related. Simple signs giving basic information on procedures, and posted answers to frequently asked questions, can help most of us who are literate.

For all of us, a friendly, courteous face concerned to help the confused taxpayer would be welcome. People get irritated immediately when they have to deal with the sulky face of someone who either does not look at you or looks past you, offers no greeting, does not appear to want to help, and mumbles some vague answer like, "Go inside and turn left", or "Go to the counter", which is quite long with many stations.

Too often people get the sense of running an obstacle course. As soon as you meet one set of conditions, you are faced with another from someone who seems intent on frustrating you, even showing you how stupid you are, rather than helping you to solve the problem you came with. It is as if you, the taxpayer, are expected to know all the procedures, even when they have been changed since the last time you stumbled upon them. Parenthetically, this seems to be a general problem in Jamaica, where there are so many missing or illegible street signs, and but for the Seventh-day Adventist churches, towns and villages with no name signs.

continuous cynicism

Too frequently, the office supervisor is not available, "not at his or her desk", has stepped out on the road, is in a meeting, not in office today, and a myriad of other reasons why he or she is not accessible. When you do get a chance to speak with one, it is rare that you leave with a sense that corrective action will be taken, not by way of sanctions against the person giving poor service, but in the form of attempts to improve the process of service delivery.

And so, the cynicism of the public continues, and is compounded, as aggrieved persons share their stories of disrespect and frustration, and create a commonly believed synthesis of all the bad experiences. With this perception of the dread that lies ahead, the taxpayer braces for the assault, and this negative vibe probably increases the tension of the encounter with the public servant.

It has long been accepted that those agencies that are collecting revenue for the Government should take the lead in improving customer service by making the payment of taxes and fees as easy as possible. The NHT's experience may well be a guide, because it is said to have the highest compliance rate. The Government will both reinforce its drive for tax compliance as well as demonstrate its care for the feelings of the public by conducting an immediate, highly visible, effective and sustained drive to improve customer service in at least these agencies. It will mean rethinking service-delivery processes, retraining the staff and even reassigning persons who are not suited to dealing with the public. None of these things are rocket science. Indeed, good manners are really the core of the revamped system.

Public-sector unions must support such a campaign actively. After all, their members also suffer the disrespect and frustrations when dealing with government offices. It will certainly enhance the credibility of their commitment to improved service delivery and increased productivity in the eyes of the public if they are seen to support a drive for better customer service. With the support of the unions, the chances of improved performance will be much greater.

There are other critical points in the delivery of public services that the Government can target. For example, more courteous and sensitive receptionists, records clerks and cashiers in hospitals will ease the distress of their patients. Duty officers in police stations are too often more intimidating than helpful. Traffic police are notoriously discourteous to motorists, even as they appear to overlook gross traffic indiscipline in their attention to minor infractions, and in some instances abuse their privileges, such as driving with flashing lights when there is no apparent emergency. It is true that there is differential treatment according to social status and class, but all members of the public complain about the brusque and often rude way they are addressed by some of these officers.

Of course, everyone can recount the good feeling of a positive experience with a public officer who was courteous, who seemed to be trying to help to solve the problem rather than declare why it cannot be solved, and who tried to apologise for the discourtesies of his or her colleagues. But these ought to be the rule, and not the exception, and in the times of extreme hardship, we need more of these experiences to ease the pressures.

road mayhem

The indiscipline on the roads persists despite the best efforts of the very colourful Superintendent Radcliffe Lewis of the Traffic Division. We all have seen the taxis and buses taking short cuts at high speed through gas stations; using the turning lane to overtake traffic to get to the front of the line to go straight; stopping suddenly and anywhere to pick up passengers with at best a wiggle of the index finger as a signal; parking at corners to await passengers; and so on.

Likewise, we all see the motorcylists weaving through traffic, often without helmets. Even the bicyclists take these chances as if they are indestructible. Nor are the private motorists without blame. There is a practice of pushing the vehicle into the flow of traffic to force one's way to enter the main roads, daring the oncoming vehicles to hit one's car. Even timid-looking old ladies do that now. Everywhere there are inexperienced young drivers of high-powered vehicles racing somebody, sometimes apparently in their imagination.

Pedestrians seem to saunter in front of oncoming traffic, confident that drivers will see them and that their brakes will work. Do schoolchildren learn how to use the roads? Is it not a cardinal rule that the child walk on the inside of the adult, away from the traffic?

Supt Lewis' forces are obviously overwhelmed. But there must be a way that high-profile government attention in support of his campaigns, and strict enforcement of the law, can break the back of the indiscipline. There must be a chasm, as opposed to a crack, in a system that allows a driver with more than 100 tickets to fall through, and keep operating a public passenger vehicle. It certainly will be cost-saving to reduce the accident rate, whether measured in lives and injuries, utility posts and traffic lights, or accident and emergency services at the public hospitals.