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Comment by praveen9920 | Hacker News Reader

It is not just about red tape, it is about corruption. Govt. Employees in India join the Govt job only for "alternative" revenue ( bribes ). This process is usually handled by "agents" who knows how much these govt employees expect and provide "easy" services to whoever wants to get shit done.

To take an example a simple thing like driving license takes couple of months to get if one is planning not to involve an agent, but you can get driving license ( without knowing any driving ) in 1 month if you have an agent.

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>> This process is usually handled by "agents" who knows how much these govt employees expect and provide "easy" services to whoever wants to get shit done

That's probably why some people would block the application and even refuse bribes; they probably already have exclusive deals with agents who pay them regular bribes and will not even bother to risk accepting bribes through unproven channels. They literally monopolized the regulatory pipelines and have setup an entire supply chain around it.

Yes, worst part is unless you are inside their trust circle, you will be met with roadblocks even when money is paid. It will be even worse if you are competing with existing local player

It's the same in the Philippines and other developing countries run by corrupt trapo ("filthy rags") politicians. If you go down to the LTO (Land Transportation Office) to get your driver's license, the entrance is crowded with "fixers" who, for a fee of course, will take care of your license for you and even take the driving test for you. There is no enforcement in terms of making the applicant take the driving test themselves, so guess what? For a fee you don't have to prove you can drive or even know the rules of the road. You'll probably get your license in a hour or so. If you insist on doing it yourself and making an end run around this "system", it might take days to a week to get your license. The resulting conditions on traffic and accident rates are exactly what you might expect. Nobody cares.

2 - 7 days? In Finland it takes 10 - 14 weeks :D There are mandatory theory and driving lessons to take. Well actually the law changed recently so now it takes "only" 6 - 10 weeks.

I promise you, Finland is a lot more serious about road and traffic safety than the Philippines.

Apparently in PK these days government competes with agents on service and will take same money and deliver DL to your house

What about the employees themselves? Does govt pay bonus to employees based on performance? If not, they will fall back to original practices

It must become simple for a bribery captured in evidence to be prosecuted. This is anarchy otherwise.

It's very hard to capture.

All they do is - keep silence. If you understand the cues and pay up yourself, your work will be done otherwise you can keep waiting forever.

It's trivial to capture if there is a will. Send an agent who offers a bribe, fire the worker if the bribe is accepted.

> evidence to be prosecuted

Just be sure to bribe the police, the judge etc.

Most of the time, they don’t ask for money explicitly at all but they will put procedural roadblocks so one pick up the cue and bribe them. Like Priority Shipping for a bad analogy. Pay to fasten and smoothen your experience kind of thing.

Of course it’s illegal.

One trick it to leave a desk drawer half empty and then they go for a tea break. If they come back and they don't see money in their desk drawer, then it's hard for you to complain when they mark something in your forms as incomplete and ask you to redo it or whatever. And the next time you come to the office, you might be accidentally left to wait for a couple of hours and how you do make a decent complaint about that?

Same for me registering a car. The dealer sent me 12 documents and the inspector wanted a few more. The dealer wasn't clear what they were. So I had to waste a few hours for two days. The agent was able to cut the queue and I spent as much time as to expose the engine number under the bonnet. The agent is the funnel for bribe from me to the department.

It appears that way. If you talk to them directly they are going to ignore you and delay things. Then there are agents that specialize in fast tracking. The agents know the officials and hand over the arranged bribe and the agent just charges more to cover the bribe.

There is now plausible deniability because the agents look like they are actually providing a valuable service.

Well, These employees had to pay bribes to get that position in the first place. Its turtles all the way down.

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