The department of redundancy department

In Mexico, bureacracy prevails.

“On Thursday, the federal government awarded a prize for the "Trámite más inútil," or least useful bureaucratic procedure,” says The News.

With more than 20,000 submissions, the award went to a woman who said going to IMSS (public health care) is a pain in the neck.

“She makes countless trips to different IMSS representatives and regularly endures long delays just to get her son the special medication he requires,” the article says.Fittingly, the event began at 8:30 sharp and was over in an hour, as promised by officials, according to the story.

There are more than 4,200 trámites in Mexico, and President Felipe Calderon has promised to shave off about 1,200 by the time his term ends in 2012.

The contest was held in order for officials at federal, state and local levels to evaluate bureaucracy and cut red tape.

I’ve experienced my own share of run-around.

The other day Ahmed and I went to Cablevisión to upgrade cable service, add internet and cancel the credit card that I had lost and was on my cable account. Logic would say you could do it all at one window, but arriving, I first had to take a number, wait, then go to one window to cancel my credit card, go to a manager to contract the services, go to a different window to make the payment and give the receipt back to the manager.

By Mexican bureaucratic standards, that’s not that bad. After all, there were few people there so I didn’t wait long.

Last week, I went to a pharmacy to buy hydrogen peroxide. I ordered it from a woman behind the counter. She gave me a ticket with the price, which I took and then got in line. Ten minutes later, I gave the ticket to the cashier, paid for the peroxide and got a receipt. I then stood in another line for five minutes, handed the receipt to another woman and she finally gave me the peroxide. All of that for a tiny, 60-cent bottle of oxygenated water!Even more irritating are the banks. One friend told me that every time he deposits money at the bank to pay his light bill, he gets a “Pago por derecho de depósito” – a fee for the right to deposit money in the bank. Good grief!