It is amazing that in this day and age, we have a town council that does not accept personal cheques to settle compound fines relating to parking offences.

My son uses my wife's car for work in KL. On Feb 27, I received a notice from the PJ Town Council (MPPJ) dated Feb 15.

Since we live in Batu Gajah, Perak, I thought the best way to settle it was to send a cheque by registered post.

Admittedly, the notice stated that only cash, bank draft or postal order is accepted. However, our Batu Gajah land office accepts cheques as well as credit card for paying quit rents in spite of a similar note, to accommodate modern methods of payment.

Today, I received a letter from MPPJ enclosing the notice and my cheque, stating that the council does not accept payment by cheque. The letter was dated March 22 and my cheque was stamped 'received' on March 12. The compounded fine is only RM50 and yet the council took the trouble to return my cheque instead of accepting payment on March 12. If this is not stupid bureaucracy, I do not know what is. If my cheque is bad, they can still take further action against me.

Why is it so difficult for civil servants (a misnomer) to think in terms of convenience for the public? I cannot imagine a private enterprise refusing any form of payment.

Perhaps the civil servants have too much time and the council is not hard up of money.