Nigeria’s Bureaucracy Retrogressive, Says DAS Energy Boss

Sylvester Idowu in Warri

Chairman of DAS Energy Services Limited, Delta State, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, has reiterated that the Nigerian government’s bureaucratic processes are retrogressive and cause setback in achieving successes.

Noting that bureaucratic processes are ordinarily supposed to help keep everyone on track, he however pointed out that they are  often too cumbersome by putting  emphasis on procedures, rather than efficiency.

The former governorship aspirant and Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) noted that the systems and processes that are put in place effectively make decision-making slow.

Onuesoke, in a statement in Asaba, while reacting to Interior Minister, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo’s criticism of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) for requiring married women to travel to Abuja for a simple change of name on their passports, commended the minister for noticing such an absurd bureaucratic process.

He wondered what would warrant a married woman who resides in Asaba for instance, to travel all the way to Abuja to effect a change of name in her international passport when it can easily be done in the state offices or  online.

 “One could imagine the stress, time and financial burden it would take such woman to travel from Asaba to Abuja just to amend name in a passport that can be done in Asaba or online in the comfort of her home.

“These bureaucratic bottlenecks are not only experienced in Nigeria immigration service, it is experienced all over Nigerian ministries and even in some corporate organisations.

“The consequences of delay caused by such bureaucratic bottlenecks  are  socio-economically enormous to the nation and the citizens.

“It is responsible for duplication of processes, encourages corruption in the polity and slows down process of development,” he added.

He urged other ministers, heads of  government agencies and corporate organisations to emulate  the proposed  policy  of the interior  minister of processing international passport online so as to save Nigerians some inconvenience.

“Activities globally have gone online. We can process most of our business transactions, registration, processing of documents and other official transaction online without carrying papers from one office to the other.

“By so doing,  corruption will be reduced through personal contact from the polity, there will be  urgent facilitation of business transactions and we will achieve our goals with utmost urgency,” he stated.