One should not wonder why citizens’ complains about Greece’s public administration have increased. Greeks were always dissatisfied with the public services where civil servants would come to and leave work whenever they wanted. But in recent years things got worse for another reason: shortage of staff. Troika has practically forbidden hiring or in other words, hiring occurs in 1:7 ratio. That is 7 civil servants have to go in retirement and they’re replaced by only one.
The measure of “availability” that sent home more than 5,000 people, including public hospitals personnel put the icing on the top of a public administration that is falling apart.
The report below does not mention the reasons, but they are not hard to find according to common sense and common practice…
Gripes about civil services rose 26% last year
“There was a 26 percent rise in the number of Greeks complaining about the country’s public administration last year compared to 2012, according to the annual report compiled by the Ombudsman.
A total of 14,738 complaints were made in 2013, which is also 38 percent up on 2011, Ombudsman Kalliope Spanou informed Parliament Speaker Evangelos Meimarakis as she delivered the report. “The proper functioning of institutions is not a luxury, even in a period of crisis,” said Spanou. “The aim of increasing public revenues tends to override all other interests.”
The most common complaints were about social security funds (28 percent of the total), followed by the Finance Ministry, which drew 17.4 percent of all gripes. The watchdog found good grounds for 54 percent of the complaints and managed to settle 81.5 percent of them successfully.” (via ekathimerini)
PS I know a pensioner who has been trying to solve an issue with the tax office since several months. He must have paid more than ten visits there…
I visited a government office the other day to take one official document I needed for my child benefit, one lady filled out my details and printed it, in another office another lady signed it, then another lady looked it over and stamped it, then I was sent to another office for a gentleman to sign and stamp it (with 2 stamps!!) again!!! I’m sorry but when is this archaic system ever going to end , 4 people for one document, 3 stamps and 2 hours of my day lost!!! Oh and a whole morning of my husbands time then wasted delivering the document and getting more signatures and stamps at OGA!!!! Its so simple one central computer system with every bodies details that all the government offices can use… No more papers, no more stamps, no more wasted days, how bloody difficult can that be……..
yhe problem is simple: paper services get computerized, but still so many civil servants around. So they need to act as if there were no pcs in the offices.So simple. Honestly.