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Too much… less
Hossam Badrawi
“A lot is strong, my son, a decrease” is a wisdom that my grandmother said to me a long time ago… I did not realize it until years later. Exaggeration in the description of the event detracts from its value, and the increase in procedures complicates them, and the lengthy explanation does not mean complete knowledge, and the increase in the number of state employees dedicated to serving citizens decreases performance efficiently.
The fewer your words, the more valuable they are, and the more knowledge you can sum up in a few lines.
I thought that what makes the fabric of today is the sum of what we do in seconds, minutes and hours, and that what makes history is what we accomplish in a group of years in which successive things of small actions and decisions took place, creating a reality and drawing a picture..
Let me take you on a journey to Egypt with the eye of the citizen and the visitor, the investor and the traveler, in which successive small things happen that give the world an impression, and draw an emotion, and then draw a picture, and only when we see it, we can amend or change it if there is competence, intention and courage….
Let us start with tourism, which we all recognize the importance of encouraging to increase the wealth of the country as one of the important tributaries of the economy.
Only in Egypt, procedures for checking the traveler and his bags are carried out several times more than in any airport in the world to declare that we are keen on security, and the criterion of efficiency is numerical, not qualitative. In most of the world’s airports, check-in procedures for the airline are carried out first before security and inspection procedures, but only in Egypt are there security men at the airport’s outer door and baggage inspection before the airline offices.
After the procedures for registering travel and obtaining a travel permit card from the airline office, the traveler heads to the free zone and passes through the passports door, where the competent officer looks at the passport to ensure its validity and verify the traveler’s identity, which is normal, but the extra we have is the other security man Steps away from the first officer, who, once the passport is stamped to leave the country and head towards the free zone, checks the passport again to make sure that the passport belongs to the traveler and reconfirms that he has obtained the departure stamp that was made by the officer before him, who appears to be of the highest rank. He was standing a few steps away from him, and only seconds had passed since the passport was stamped.
And when the traveler goes to the departure gate to the plane, the procedures for checking passengers and their hand luggage begin again, in an additional security measure that is only done in Egypt.
Within this last procedure, whatever the result of passing through the electronic portal, red or green, is a self-inspection for everyone.
Repeated security measures indicate nothing but a lack of trust for everyone in each other, and a lack of trust in electronic devices that cost the state thousands of dollars..and give the impression of extravagance in spending on equipment that is present at every travel door of each airline and could have been shortened by one procedure at the entry door. To the free zone…!
I remembered my grandmother’s wisdom, “A lot, my son, is a decrease…”
If you were a citizen entering the country, in the age of digitalization, identification with the image of the face, and the fingerprint, which is the most accurate and correct, we find someone passing you on the plane and handing you a paper card to write on it what is written in your passport, and this is the procedure that stopped when entering all the countries of the civilized world Not to mention if you are a citizen entering your country.
If you are a tourist and would like to obtain an entry visa, you must go through the suffering of unorganized crowds and sometimes the need for cash in a world that uses credit cards.
When you go to get your passport stamped to enter Egypt, you will find a few passport stamping offices, and the arrivals stand in vertical rows in front of them. If a passenger is late in front of the passport officer, a long line of passengers will be behind him. Who completed the procedures of the previous passenger, so there is no crowding or anxiety…
When the passenger stamps his passport and hands over the unnecessary paper entry card, he finds another security man who makes sure that the previous officer has stamped the passport!!!!
The passenger then moves on to receiving the bags, which are usually delayed due to the lack of loading workers to process the bags, despite the accumulation of managers and employees in general at the airport. a
The arrival of the bags is located geographically overlapping with the rows of passengers in front of the customs exit.. The important thing is that each passenger picks up his bags from their track to find two exit doors in front of him, one for those who do not carry goods due to customs and another red one for those carrying goods that are due. In Egypt, this does not matter, because everyone is exposed to having their passports opened again and to the question, “Do you have what is worth the customs duty?” And it is not possible to identify the standard on the basis of which a passenger is searched and the other is left, because in any case, everyone feels that he is accused.
As soon as he passes through this unnecessary crowd, which can be facilitated geographically and practically, the traveler exits the customs inspection to find another security man at the exit door, after which he finds himself in front of an adult who seizes him, offering him means of transportation because there is no direct exit to the parking place, nor There are regular lines for taxis, and basically it is not allowed to have a car waiting for you in a suitable place at the exit door.
Is it possible to get rid of all the complications and organize the movement of passengers ???
And the answer is yes.. in a day and a night.. if we are serious… Repeating actions under the pretext of safety, and complicating procedures, is getting used to a bureaucracy that contributes to the feeling that our country has a wrong need, which is not in reality.
The increase in procedures applies to the case of closing traffic in front of hundreds of cars at peak hours to verify car licenses with the aim of discovering one violator in front of blocking a hundred non-violators behind him. Philosophy says that the right of the ninety-nine to move and facilitate their path is more important and better than obstructing everyone in order to discover one violator.
Security ambushes in the streets that sometimes start for a good reason, and the reason for their existence ends, but they remain present, blocking a lane of traffic without meaning, and we call them ambushes, although everyone knows their location.
Another example we see in securing some geographical areas such as the most important antiquities area, the pyramids, or in front of some embassies (the British and American embassies) in Garden City, by closing the streets in front of the public, and the truth is that security is not achieved by appearances and closing roads, but rather by science, and at that time we do not feel the presence of security men … It was My father-in-law, Hassan Abu Pasha, who was a powerful interior minister and a politician of the first rank, tells me, “Whenever you see intense security measures, vehicles, and security men in abundance in the streets, know that security is not stable. These are manifestations of weakness, not strength, because strong security is not visible to the eye.”
The same thing applies to security gates at the entrances to hotels and malls, which no longer exist at the entrances to civil facilities in Europe, the United States, or even in the Gulf. However, we insist in Egypt that they continue to exist, although we know that they have become formalities that do not perform a real security value, but we stick to And we spend on it and I don’t know why.
It is a management philosophy and concept that is concerned not with fact, but with form.
Can we get rid of all of that??
The answer is yes, if we have the desire and competence, and in a very short time, bearing in mind that the positive impression of the country’s ability to manage the minutes of its affairs will mean efficiency in managing its hours and days.
Why do we do this ourselves, so that it creates a negative impression on the coming and going, and our revenues from tourism are meager compared to countries that do not have our historical sources of wealth and our beautiful beaches. Tourism does not prohibit photography, there are no permits to be present in every tourist place, and there is no complication in entering it. Tourism respects the tourist’s freedom of movement, photography, and enjoyment, and investment flees from our economy, and the citizen and visitor are afraid of strict measures that appear weak, informative, and sometimes meaningless…
My grandmother did not study economics, but in her genius statement, she is in line with the rules of science that say that achieving the best competitiveness comes when we achieve the goal with the highest efficiency, in the shortest time, and at the lowest cost in a timely manner.
We are increasing, in what we do, under the pretext of protection and care, which in my humble opinion is a deficiency.
