A problem with non-standard fees

Back home I would not consider myself a friend of rigid administrative systems. I often find it hard to cope if there is a lot of forms to fill out, I get unproportionally nervous by visa applications and when I was a kid I could never meet the deadlines in school. But here in Uganda I have had a couple of experiences which has made me realize the beauty of rigid systems.

One objective of people who work with gender based violence is to streamline the administrative and juridical path of victims. Basically, from the point you ask somebody for help to the point where the actual problem is solved you will pass through a number of authorities. Often you will visit both a hospital and a police station. You might contact different local administrators and if it comes to it, you will appear in court. Now, in an ideal world anybody in Uganda, regardless of economic and educational background, would be able to navigate this path. But that is rarely the case. One problem, which really shouldn’t be a problem, is that along this path the victim will be exposed to various non-standard fees. For example, after being examined at the hospital you need one of the staff to fill in a form for the police about the injuries. When this is done you usually give that person a small amount of money, just a few thousand shillings (one dollar), to compensate for the fact that they may have to testify if there will be a trial. I don’t think it is unreasonable. It is a way for people to cope when their job responsibilities are not clearly defined and when their salaries are too low for them to do extra work for free. Moreover, my impression is that one dollar, as a one-time expense, is bearable for most households here. However, for a woman who is running away from home this can be a hard obstacle to overcome. Now, the shelter covers this expense for its clients. The cost is small enough to be absorbed by the shelters budget. And technically, the shelter could set up a system where a certain amount of money is allocated to each client to cover these expenses. But this is where the problem of non-standard fees comes in. Since the cost is not part of a system it varies from person to person. Depending on your economic background, or what economic background the doctor thinks you have you will be expected to pay different amounts. Moreover, Matilda told me of a case where she had gone to a hospital with a woman who had been beaten in the head and neck with a stick. There was three medical officers in place but they all refused to fill in the form. They claimed they were not qualified to do it (a lie). Probably it was because Matilda, who is working for Action Aid, was there and that they were afraid they would get into trouble for corruption (because of the non-standard fee involved). This couldn't have been further from Matildas intentions. She just wanted to get the form filled out for her client. In the end, after a lot of hassle, they managed to get another medical officer, who was on leave, to come in to the office and fill in the form. This is just an example but I think it illustrates how something that would appear trivial, a small fee like this, becomes very complicated to deal with because things are not standardized.