An Italian Doctor Joins the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame

 by Dan Mitchell

 

In April of 2013, I introduced a Moocher Hall of Fame to “celebrate” some very odious examples of welfare dependency.
Since that time, I keep thinking that it’s time to do something similar for government bureaucrats. This compilation from last December would be a good place to start, though I’d have to figure out whether to have group memberships so that we could include the bureaucrats at the Patent and Trademark Office who get paid to watch TV, as well as the paper pushers at the Department of Veterans Affairs who got big bonuses after creating secret waiting lists that led to the death of former soldiers.
But if we’re creating a Bureaucrat Hall of Fame, I won’t want to discriminate against foreigners.
The U.K.-based Telegraph reports, for instance, that an unnamed doctor from Italy is a very worthy candidate for this award.

The notorious inefficiencies of Italy’s state sector were laid bare on Thursday as news emerged of a Sicilian doctor who has done just 15 days’ work in the past nine years.

How has he “achieved” this degree of non-work?

…the doctor disappeared off on a university training course, reportedly paid for by taxpayers’ money, when he started work in 2005. Returning to work on October 31, 2008, the doctor immediately asked for, and obtained, paid family leave until May the following year. Then he worked 15 days at the hospital before calling off sick until July 2009. Recovered from illness, the doctor obtained a place on another university training course, once again reportedly swapping his wage for payment from the state university, which lasted until June this year, said wire agency ANSA. The doctor is now allegedly planning more time off to obtain a doctorate which will finish in December 2016.

By the way, our lazy doctor has lots of company. Indeed, Sicily sounds like the California of Italy.

The problem is pronounced in Sicily, where an army of around 144,000 regional staff – both permanent and temporary – includes 26,000 forestry workers, more than in British Columbia in Canada. Around 7,000 Sicilians have been given government jobs teaching work skills to Sicilians without jobs.

With that amount of waste and featherbedding, no wonder Italian taxpayers are beginning to revolt.
Here’s a specific example that boggles the mind.

Red tape on the island has also created surreal working weeks for those employed by the local government. In March, a vet in Trapani complained that the work he was contracted to carry out for the local authority had been spread over a such a long period he was required to do just one minute’s work every week. “Once a week I go to the office and stamp my pass,” said Manuel Bongiorno. “I walk in, wait for a minute to go by, then stamp the pass again. It’s been going on for months,” he added.

I don’t know if “vet” means he’s an animal doctor or a former soldier, but he doesn’t qualify for membership in the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame because he apparently wants to do some work.
That’s preposterous, but what would you expect in a nation where government is so incompetent that the wrong people are appointed to high-level jobs that shouldn’t even exist.
So you can see why I don’t really care which party rules Italy. The names may change at the top, but government always comes out ahead.
Though a New York Times columnist actually wrote that America should become more like Italy. And he wasn’t being satirical. At least not on purpose.
P.S. The U.K. government has raised its terror threat level from “substantial” to “severe.” I realize this is a serious issue, but I couldn’t help but think about the humorous version of European threat levels.