• Some departments are born wasteful, some achieve wastefulness, and some have wastefulness thrust upon them.

• A program expands to make complete use of the money available.

• Forget the goal; it's the paperwork that counts.

• When in doubt, set up a committee.

• Every bureaucrat rises beyond his level of incompetence.

• When things go wrong, stonewall.

• If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing wastefully.

• Time is money; more time is more money.

• When trimming expenses, go for the pennies, not for the pounds.

• Ask not what you can do for the government; ask what the government can do for you.

• If government money can be misappropriated, it will be.

[Contributed by BS Bhatnagar, Principal of the Indian School, Muscat, in The Week, June 2, 2002]