I should get an award for equal opportunity.
The Bureaucrat Hall of Fame has plenty of American members, but it also has civil servants from India, France, and Italy, and the United Kingdom, all of whom have gone above and beyond the call of duty in their efforts to rip off taxpayers.
And now we have a new applicant from overseas, so maybe we’ll enjoy even more diversity.
The U.K.-based Times reports on a Spanish bureaucrat that didn’t bother to show up for work for six consecutive years.
A civil servant in Spain didn’t turn up to work for six years. …He had continued to collect his annual salary. Records show that the engineer started working for a water company run by the municipal authorities in Cádiz in 1990 but last did a day’s work in 2004.
Even though this bureaucrat is an amateur compared to the Indian civil servant who skipped work for two decades, I think he’s worthy of membership in the Hall of Fame.
Especially since one aspect of the story perfectly symbolizes the mind-boggling inefficiency of government.
…his absence was noticed only when he was due to collect a long-service award. …Mr Blas said: “We thought the water company had supervised him but it was not the case. We discovered this when we were about to present him with a commemorative plaque for his 20 years of service.”
You may be thinking that this combination of sloth and incompetence at least led to a termination.
Not exactly.
…he cannot be sacked from his €37,000-a-year job as he has since retired.
For what it’s worth, Senor Garcia supposedly is now obliged to return 30,000 euro of his ill-gotten loot.
I’m not holding my breath expecting that to happen.
However, even though it’s not mentioned in the story, I feel very confident that he’ll get a bloated pension courtesy of the Spanish taxpayers.
Why do I think a deadbeat will get a pension?
For the simple reason that Spain – even though it’s in the middle of a deep fiscal crisis – has an above-average burden for bureaucratic compensation.
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Image credit: Efraimstochter | Pixabay License.
