Who watches the watchdogs? Malaysia offers an answer. State and federal ministers on spot checks.
It started a year or two ago when Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi went on surprise visits to the Sultan Iskandar Building's Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) Complex in Johor Baru and the Sultan Abu Bakar Complex (KSAB) in Iskandar Puteri, two land crossings into Singapore known for notorious congestion.
On one such visit, Onn Hafiz blew his fuse when he came upon the most overused of all excuses for the snaking crowd there: lack of staff. Sort it out, was his reverberating remedy. But recalcitrance comes attached with its own legacy.
After Onn Hafiz's most recent visit, a reshuffle of heads of department took place, earning him some brickbats. His surprise visits may be taken to serve as an unofficial signal for a campaign to keep the public service up to world standards.
Expect more in the future. And the future happened on Monday when Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof made his own surprise visit to the CIQ and elsewhere at 4.15am. Onn Hafiz was there, too. No staff movement has happened, but the message to civil servants appears to be clear: buck up or pack up.
The CIQ and KSAB aren't the only ones being inundated with congestion issues. Public service counters generally are congestion-prone. Immigration counters are especially so.
Why burden the public so, especially the many elderly who have to queue for hours before the counters open? And for some, the queue is the first of the double whammy.
The other awaits them when they reach the counter eventually: "Sorry, we have run out of queue tickets for the day." What is the issue? Staff, skill, system, structure, strategy or shared values, we ask, as management consultant McKinsey are wont to.
It seems the 1.4-million strong civil service is in need of watching. What happens in Johor must not just stay in Johor. The spot-check norm there must go nationwide, with more ministers paying surprise visits at checkpoints and counters. Spot checks by ministers, as Johor has shown, help tone public service delivery muscles.
Public service is indispensable. No life can be lived without coming into contact with some aspect of it. Staying in the country or leaving it for business or pleasure, we need its facilitation.
Most of the civil servants are helpful. But there are a recalcitrant few among the 1.4 million who bring disrepute to the entire public service. Zoom in on an incident at the CIQ. Snaking queues of motorcyclists were congesting the Causeway, with many of them honking.
Mind you, this was in the presence of Onn Hafiz. To a question to the Immigration officer as to why they were honking, the response was a lazy "it is normal".
Little did the officer realise that Onn Hafiz had noticed the cause of the congestion: a skylift was blocking the path of the motorcyclists. He ordered the officer to remove it immediately.
If a counter service delivery needs the help of a menteri besar, then it must be dismal indeed. It is also an argument for frequent spot checks.
Congestion and long queues aren't the problem. They are symptoms of something that has gone wrong with the public service delivery.