9.50 am at the civil status service at the Hussein Dey Town Hall, there, was a crowd. Long queues beholders cannot tell where they end. We counted the citizens going there in the morning, the number reached 65 citizens, and it may reach as high as one hundred at this service. We have perceived, a 50-year old lady entering; we took a peek at the watch that pointed out at 10.03 am three minutes. The lady stood at the bottom of a queue behind the counter of the service, in order to withdraw a birth certificate. 11.01 am, the lady finally got her birth certificate, yet there was still another queue to take; it leads to the desk where certificates are being certified. She waited for 14 minutes behind the counter, thus a total time the lady had spend at the service was one hour 12 minutes to withdraw a birth certificate.
A whole day at the civil status records service at Algiers Centre Town Hall
Within less than an hour, we found ourselves at the heart of Algiers the Capital, at Algiers Centre Town Hall, some acquaintance of ours advised us to pay a visit to the records service in charge of issuing original birth certificates or n° 12. What is special about this service is that most of Algiers residents born before independence are registered at this Town Hall, which puts much of pressure on it, which pressure is borne by both workers and citizens just the same. The mode of operation consists in depositing a birth certificate demand in the morning, and receiving it in the evening, most of the clients prefer to deposit their demands and go do their businesses to come back sometime later to withdraw their document.
Flagrant “Acquaintance”
Years ago, everybody used to talk about acquaintance as a “trick” that people resort to secretly; but nowadays it has become a daylight practice. During a tour through services of civil status and post offices, El Khabar has seen how people come to such services and get papers they need without passing by queues. For instance, in Hussein-Dey’s Town Hall, a man has come in; perceived the long queues, called the agent behind desks; gave him his family register and then exchanged whispers. “Ok, it will be ready in minutes!” the agent replied at last.
45 days in the wait of a passport!
El Khabar has also been a witness of a citizen who came in to a sub-prefect, somewhere in Algiers, to extend the validity of his passport, which logically means that it would take less time compared to the issuing of a new one. However, the guy couldn’t really get his extended passport only after 45 days! The weird in this is that the said passport had been signed by Prefect Delegate 10 days after being submitted for extension, noting that such a signature is the last stage in the process of issuing a passport. This means that the extended passport had been seized in desks of this administration for about 35 days, instead of being delivered it to the guy!
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Quelle/Source: Elkhabar, 28.04.2009
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