unusual idea
Emergency button against bureaucracy: Cape Town introduces “Stupid Rule Button”.
The City Hall in Cape Town, South Africa
© imagebroker / Imago Images
The mayor of Cape Town wants to make his city more attractive as a business location. To do this, he came up with an unusual idea
By Victoria Robertz
Nonsensical specifications, procedures that are far too complicated or idiosyncratic ways of working: Almost everyone who works in corporate or official bureaucracy knows that one encounters stupid rules in everyday work. In the future, the employees of the city administration of Cape Town in South Africa will be able to make an emergency call in such a case: Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has introduced a so-called “Stupid Rule Button”. The head of the authority wants to remove unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles and make his city more attractive for companies.
In fact, bureaucracy is a brake on economic growth and means an enormous expenditure of time and personnel for both politicians and companies. According to a study by the Institute for SME Research, the bureaucracy costs in larger companies usually amount to at least one percent of sales.
Cape Town wants to become the number one business location
South Africa is known for its sprawling bureaucracy. According to World Bank data, setting up a business here takes an above-average amount of time. In an international comparison of 200 cities, in which the management consultancy Kearney examined the attractiveness in terms of capital, people and ideas, Cape Town, with a population of 4.7 million, came 80th in 2022, worse than five years ago.
The “Stupid Rule Button” is therefore part of a larger campaign designed to make doing business in Cape Town easier than in any other city in Africa. “The officials who work with the guidelines every day know first-hand where things can be improved,” explains Hill-Lewis. “By removing all the bureaucratic and inflexible hurdles we have imposed on ourselves, we want to make the framework conditions for companies easier and be able to provide services better.”
Before Geordin Hill-Lewis of the liberal opposition Democratic Alliance party became mayor in 2021, he sat in South Africa’s National Assembly for over a decade. In addition to the “Stupid Rule Button”, he also wants to improve digital platforms for building applications and online appointments in Cape Town, create investment incentives in the form of fee waivers or reduced electricity tariffs and encourage a reduction in bureaucracy at the Ministry of Finance.
A good idea, but not a new one
In the social networks, many users are enthusiastic about the “Stupid Rule Button”. The “brilliant idea” and “great initiative” are praised on Twitter. Some would also like the button for their workplace or wonder if there could be something similar for citizens. The idea of such a tool for reducing bureaucracy is not new at all. The “Kafka Brigade Foundation” from the Netherlands has been working for years to eliminate bureaucracy and give the public a voice.
The organization invented the “Kafka Button” for this purpose, a hotline that companies and institutions can use for their employees to report frustrating experiences with bureaucracy. At the other end of the hotline is a specially trained team that takes care of the problems. So far there is no data on how complex and successful the system is. It is important, writes “Kafka Brigade” on its website, that the responsible team has access to executives or politicians and the authority to take measures
There is a similar team in Cape Town and should also be able to allay concerns. Because some fear that excessive bureaucracy reduction will mean that important steps will be skipped and that dangers will not be adequately taken into account. However, every regulation reported by employees as a “stupid rule” is evaluated by the investigation team. A decision is then made as to whether the specifications need to be explained again, changed or removed.