The Presidential Hotline established by President Jacob Zuma last year, turns one year old today, 14 September 2010.
President Zuma established the hotline and Public Liaison unit to ensure easier access to The Presidency and to promote citizen care and a government that is responsive, interactive and effective.
Of the 72 299 total calls received from the public since the inception of the hotline, the total number of complaints up to 7 September 2010 is 57 375. The service resolves about 400 cases per week which puts the resolution of all complaints to a total of 30 540.
The main complaints are in the areas of housing, employment, safety and security, water, electricity, citizenship issues such as access to identity documents and birth certificates, social grants, education and training, roads construction and maintenance as well as health services.
The hotline is also being used by whistleblowers. To date 350 cases of alleged corruption have been received and these are being processed for further investigation. These relate to alleged social grants fraud, tender fraud in various departments, corruption in municipalities, correctional services, housing departments and others.
A number of citizens have been assisted, thanks to the hotline. One satisfied citizen is Ms Fikile Manzini of Mpumalanga province who complained about the lack of water in Pienaar Kwa-Msogwaba in Mpumalanga, and said the Mbombela municipality expected the public to hire their own transport for the collection of building material for the construction of RDP houses. The Mbombela Municipality intervened. The area now has water and the building of Ms Manzini's house has been completed.
Ms Lynette Temlett's family had been struggling to get registration for the subdivision of their Plot at Ruimsig extension 74 in Roodepoort. She has written a letter of appreciation thanking the Presidential Hotline for helping with the registration.
Service providers who were owed money by municipalities have received their refunds. These municipalities include Matlosana municipality in North West, Matjhabeng municipality and Ngwathe municipality in the Free State, Amakhazeni municipality in Mpumalanga and many other municipalities.
One major challenge of dealing with the needs of the public is still to obtain quicker responses from government departments and provinces. To resolve this problem, and in keeping with the president's call to create a government that works faster, harder and smarter to respond to the needs of the people, the President decided to make Directors-General responsible for resolving the queries and complaints in their departments.
The Department for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation will conduct a first year assessment of the hotline to look at challenges, successes and opportunities to improve the hotline. The review will inform the interventions that need to be introduced to make the hotline more effective.
"We thank all members of the public who take the time to call the hotline and relate their enquiries. We thank those who report anti-corruption allegations as well; they will help us in our campaign to ensure clean governance and to root out corruption in the public service.
"We will continue working to improve this service as it is clearly a valuable tool in keeping government in touch, and also to train public servants to take members of the public seriously when they raise issues and enquiries," said President Zuma.
Enquiries:
Harold Maloka
Cell: 082 847 9799
Zizi Kodwa
Cell: 082 330 4910
Hotline turns one year old
