Government departments

I've generally had good experiences with government departments, but after today, my vote for most incompetent department is the Department of Transport, specifically the licensing department.

I've been trying to change titleholder on my car's registration, and find out what the cost of a personalised registration number is. After some searching, I found the government department web page listing contact details for the various licensing department offices in the Johannesburg area. I called at least 8 different offices, some with up to 4 separate numbers, and only one was answered (and they couldn't help me).

Yesterday I drove over to the big Sandton/Marlboro office...and the gates were closed. Turned out they had a big union meeting...so 4 different major offices were closed for the day. Nice customer service there. I went through today, and there was no parking, the information desk was clueless, and the staff slow. I gave up after an hour. Tomorrow I'll try again at the Johannesburg city office.

The Department of Transport could learn a lot from Home Affairs.