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July 18, 2006
$150,000 Passports from Japan
Wow. What a way to spend 2 billion yen!
In yet another wildly clueless governmental program to waste taxpayer money, The Foreign ministry of Japan has admitted defeat after their online passport registration system fell flat on its face.
The ministry pissed away over 2 billion yen developing and managing a system that only created a couple of hundred passports in it's short 3 year lifespan. The cost for registering for a passport online comes out to about 4 thousand times more expensive than the current method.
I think the government was surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for the project. After all, them people seems to like that inter-web thingamajig.
Sure, the current way is a pain in the neck, requiring citizens to go to ward offices and fill out forms. The new system is much better, Now instead of going to the government office, filling out the forms and showing your ID, taking a picture at the booth in the office, paying a fee and waiting in a long line, the e-process has been streamlined to, go to the government office, fill out a form to gain another id and pay a fee, wait in another line to fill out another form and pay another fee, take a picture, then go to a store and buy a computer, go to another store and buy a IC card reader for your computer (there are at least 18 stores nationwide that you can do this in), pay another fee to do this online, buy an online ic card reader compatible payment card, wait... I think i forgot a step. Ok after you take a photo, then you get... oh nevermind.
yeah. my tax money at work...
Asahi.com: Passport program packed in
Posted by Kakyou at 04:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack