Haste Makes Waste

A friend of ours in Monrovia, a foreigner, told me this story yesterday. Every month, he goes to the Immigration bureau to get a new visa. (His wife works for the UN, but since it's an unaccompanied post, they won't risk the liability of sponsoring him for Resident Alien status.) Each time, he gets in line and someone approaches him, a 'fixer' who offers to expedite the process for US$20. Our buddy waits in the hair salon next door, and 15 mins later the guy comes back with his passport, stamped with a new visa. Works every time, he says. It's a routine, by now.

Yesterday when he goes to do his visa routine, the fixer's not there, so our buddy waits in line. The people at the counter inform him that all this time, he's been paying some hustler to affix a meaningless stamp in his passport.