A few days ago I read a newspaper report regarding Jeddah Municipality. Although this public service organization has been making some positive strides in recent times, in the opinion of many of its customers those efforts still fall short of the finish line. In the past, many of its customers accused the municipality of various shortcomings, such as not facilitating the process for startup businesses, not laying out the proper city infrastructure, a weakness in planning and executing projects and a host of other ills. Said a user some time ago, "If this bureaucracy did not exist, life would be easier for a lot of folks. Let its functions be absorbed by the ministry and do away with these municipal officials. They think we are there to serve them, instead of the other way around." Another dissatisfied customer claimed, "If you don't have the funds to grease their palms, you are out of luck. Your file is going nowhere." But municipal leaders have been promising changes for the better. The mayor and his staff have publicly committed themselves to transparency in the manner in which they conduct business, and everything is supposed to be out in the open. Now the recent news report raised another issue, namely that for some weeks now, the municipality's central computer system has been down. The report mentioned the disruption of "services at the municipality and its 14 branches and 26 service centers for the third consecutive week, incurring heavy losses to businesses and causing problems for individuals and organizations." Three weeks and no solution in sight except to revert back to the old fashioned way of filling in forms by hand, queuing up and submitting them by hand to disgruntled municipal clerks. Apparently that process did not work either as the municipality has stopped accepting any applications due to the malfunctioning of the computer system. A number of service centers were visited and no people were around to submit their applications in order to obtain the various services that they required, including the issuance of licenses and permission to carry out various activities. Among some of the reassuring words by municipal officials was that "repair work was progressing well to bring the system back to normal." No further details were provided. The mayor and designated head said that "efforts are being made to repair the computer system to resume all electronic services shortly," while another interjected that "it would take several weeks for the municipality to extend normal services to the public." He did not give any reason for the computer breakdown. Now most people are aware of computer system breakdowns, but less aware of what causes them. Simply put, there is no specific reason. However, most breakdowns can be traced to human error. The system is made up of complex electronics that work with different types of technologies that need periodic maintenance and updating. If that is not accomplished efficiently, a breakdown can be expected. Another reason is the use of cheap hardware that simply fails and in effect disrupts an entire system. Complex software that might have looked good during a sales presentation is another key issue that results in computer problems. Some modern systems use low-quality software that does not maximize the utilization of the hardware foundation. However, no matter what the computer system and regardless of its complexity, the report about the municipality's system breakdown is indicative of a greater problem. To begin with, a repair going into its fourth week is simply unacceptable regardless of the complexity of the issue. A matter of 24 or 48 hours perhaps, but this has been going on for well over 20 days! Either the municipal staff have no idea or they are getting the wrong advice. Another issue is why no effective fallback measures are in place in case of a system breakdown. However, as I do not expect the municipality to explain to its customers the real reasons for the delay, I shall not bother to hold my breath. — The author can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @talmaeena
