The Whisperer

It’s sometimes difficult to fathom why officialdom likes to make people run around for a government stamp or seal on a document. The Whisperer’s friend wanted to get a document attested by the Indian Embassy and for this he reached the premises around 8.15am.

He went to get a token number when an official said that he would have to get it stamped at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) ‘somewhere in Manama’ and also mentioned in passing that the MFA may ask for a stamp from the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) too.

So this friend found that the MFA office was in Manama Centre and anybody who has travelled to the capital in the morning hours knows about the heavy traffic as well as the difficulty to find parking. He eventually arrived and at the counter he was told that he would have to get a stamp from the BCCI in Sanabis, next to the LMRA.

So our friend drove to the BCCI, got a seal from there, went back to the MFA after finding parking about half-a-kilometre away, got the stamp from there and then back to the embassy, where he finally got the document attested, which all took about two-and-half hours.

His question to officialdom is simple: ‘why couldn’t you just say get a stamp from the BCCI, then from the MFA and then come here’. It would have saved our friend some trouble as well as time. Thankfully he had an understanding boss who didn’t reprimand him for reporting late for work.