License to Bribe

Photo credit: dailymail

Last Saturday I went to the police office to extend my driver's license. I headed off there with positive mind because from what I heard, there is no room for bribery in getting driver's license nowadays as police officers are in attempt to heal their image after a lot of humiliating cases involving police institution that give them bad names.

Soon as I got to the police office, I went straight to the counter where there is one police officer waiting. And below is the script of my conversation with this officer, with a little bit of modification as I can’t exactly remember word by word.

• Me (showed my old driver's license) : “Good morning. I’d like to extend my driver's license, please”

• Him (took the license and observed it) : “Morning, Mam. Where do you work?”

• Me (puzzled with his question. What does my work got to do with driver's license?) : “Oh, I work for XXXXX”

• Him : “And where does your husband work?”

• Me (puzzled even more. And what the hell has husband’s work got to do with my driver's license?) : “My husband works XXXXX”

• Him (Smile in relief) : “Okay, let me explain the procedure. We had two procedures in extending a driver's license here. One is the regular procedure. You have to take one of the forms on the desk outside and fill in it. After doing the paperwork, you have to have your health checked in the next building, and make a payment on the bank, then come back here to hand all the papers. Then you have to wait till you are asked to take a picture and finger print, and have another wait till your license is issued. The second one is the special procedure. All you have to do is giving me this old license and the copy of your ID card then wait. You’ll be asked to take a picture and finger print, then your license is done” 

• Me : “I see. So, there are two lines of procedures. And what is the difference between these two in term of the fee?” 

• Him: “For the regular procedure you only have to pay a hundred thousand rupiahs. For the special procedure you have to pay a hundred and fifty thousand rupiahs. But again you don’t have to take the special procedure if you are reluctant to pay the extra fee”

• Me (Starting to get the idea on why he asked me about work. The standard fee for extending driver's license is one hundred thousand rupiahs. So the extra fifty thousands is bribery to "smooth things down". Maybe he was afraid if I am a journalist or people who can report the bribery case) : “Can I go outside and have a thought for a while?”

• Him: “Sure, Mam”

So I went outside and had a thought. If I took the regular or “do it yourself” procedure, I would have to do all the hassle in filling in the form, having a health check and lining up to pay to the bank. It would certainly take a long time. If I took the special or “leave it to me” procedure, all I had to do was sit and wait. It would be fast and hassle free. 

For a second I thought to take the regular procedure. Bribing will mean betrayal to my value. I condemn bribery, no matter how minuscule the amount of money involved is. Say no to bribery! 

But then I remembered my kids who were waiting sweaty in the car. There flashed before my eyes their school projects that needed my help to do, some clothes for work that needed ironing, some new DVDs that I was dying to watch, some works from the office that I took home with me… oh, my. I didn’t have the luxury to do all that hassle in getting the driver's license while I had many more important things to do, including writing for this blog :)

So, pathetically, I put a hundred and fifty thousand rupiahs in the folder and handed it to the officer. It took no longer than ten minutes till my new license was issued, while I could see that some people who came way before me and went through the regular procedure still stayed in line waiting.

I bribed, and it was humiliating. But what’s more humiliating is the way these officers open rooms for bribery by taking advantage of people who have no time luxury like me. They give options of the slow lane and the fast lane, which inevitably encourage people to bribe. Who on earth would want to do things slowly if they could do it fast? (unless we're talking about making love, of course). If these officers really intend to uplift their image, why don’t they set one regular procedure and cut the inefficiency to make things faster? If paying an extra fifty thousand rupiahs can make me skip some steps in making the license, then maybe these particular steps were not meant to be in the procedure to begin with. 

There goes my dream to have a clean country where no people bribe and corrupt. And I, for one, maintain this practice of bribery by choosing to bribe myself. Damn!