Because humans are social beings, we need to signal to the others that we belong to the group and are doing our part. Our loyalty is prized more than our effectiveness or efficiency. It doesn't matter how productive you are, the feelings of the group are more important.

You can see this in many places in our society. The security theater in airports don't make air travel that much safer, but it does send a signal to the group "look, we're doing something about it!". Same goes for the war on drugs, notoriously ineffective and seemingly only makes things worse. The hunt for benefits fraud is often not quite effective, hurts the ones that actually need the benefits, but the fear of the freeloader is big enough one must be seen to be tough on fraudsters. Or school, where doing what you're told is much more important than any learning you might do along the way. Or the way China is now burying itself with Xi's everlasting reign.

If you think humans are meant to be effective and efficient, you are very much mistaken. Everything we manage do, we do in spite of it.