Bureaucracy

I have tried to remain positive in my blogging for many reasons, but most importantly: 1) I don’t like complainers, and 2) I want to remember the good things about Swaziland, as opposed to the bad. But, today was a special day and it deserves to be documented. In an effort not to waste MORE time, I’m going with a chronological approach as opposed to a full narrative (for real, I’ve already been tortured once):

8:20am Left home and drove to Matsapha (30 kilometers)

8:45am Stopped for the third time to ask for directions to government sanctioned auto shop

9:00am Arrived C.T.A. (government sanctioned auto shop). Let the record show that there is not a single sign anywhere indicating the location is in fact C.T.A.

9:30am Completed paperwork, road worthiness test, and received ‘stamped’ receipt proving so

9:50am Back in Mbabane (30 kilometers)

10:00am In line at Income Tax office in pursuit of ‘tax credit number’

10:15am Sent away from Income Tax office to ‘Grade Tax’ office (different building) to complete paperwork for said tax credit number

10:40am Back in line at Income Tax office with tax credit number in hand

11:00am Departed Income Tax office and drove to national Revenue headquarters

11:05am Sent away from Revenue headquarters because their ‘system’ is down

11:15am Departed Revenue headquarters for Revenue ‘satellite’ branch in town (where aforementioned ‘system’ is working)

11:40am In line at ‘satellite’ Revenue branch. Let the record show that the line is out the door.

12:00pm Give window teller 8 ‘stamped’ documents in pursuit of changing over the title of our car to our name

12:05pm Informed missing 1 document

12:10pm Departed for Manzini Police Station (35 kilometers) to retrieve missing document

12:40pm In line at Police Station

1:00pm Departed for Mbabane (35 kilometers) with ‘stamped’ missing document in tow

1:30pm Arrived back at ‘satellite’ Revenue branch. It is closed until 2:00pm for lunch…

1:40pm Departed for Swaziland Water Services headquarters to resolve duplicate billing issue

1:50pm Waited in parking lot for headquarters to re-open following lunch

2:05pm In line at Swaziland Water Services headquarters

2:10pm Sent away from headquarters to ‘satellite’ branch in the Swazi Plaza where the old MTN offices used to be (oh, right, now I know where you’re talking about…of course)

2:30pm In line at Swaziland Water Services ‘satellite’ branch

2:35pm Sent away from ‘satellite’ branch because their ‘system’ is down (seriously?)

3:05pm In line at ‘satellite’ Revenue branch with 8 ‘stamped’ documents plus previously missing document

3:20pm Owner of vehicle and now title for Toyota RAV 4

Yep, that really did take 7 hours. Awesome.