Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane says statistics from national Presidential Hotline indicate that the majority of the calls logged emanate from Gauteng.
“So it was therefore appropriate to launch a provincial hotline for Gauteng,” said Mokonyane at the launch of the Gauteng Premier's Hotline on Thursday at the Grace Bible Church in Soweto.
Mokonyane described the launch of the hotline, which is a toll-free number, as one of the milestones in government's efforts to improve communication with Gauteng residents.
However, Mokonyane said the fact that Gauteng residents logged the most calls on the presidential hotline did not mean the province was in service delivery turmoil.
“It is not a sign of crisis... We live in a smart province,” Mokonyane said, suggesting that Gauteng residents were the most active in voicing their concerns.
This means that Gauteng residents are in dire need of direct contact with their government at provincial level.
With 70 trained agents, whom Mokonyane described as all-rounders, working per day, callers will receive a response from call centre agents within 72 hours or three days.
“In some instances they will be able to respond immediately,” she said.
Since the pilot project was launched in March last year, Mokonyane said, 95 000 calls had been handled.
The premier said 70 percent of the calls logged were resolved, while 30 percent were resolved at departmental and municipal level.
"The feedback we received since the soft launch period indicates a reasonable level of satisfaction amongst the callers and enthusiasm as a result of the professionalism demonstrated by our call centre agents when handling their concerns."
Mokonyane said progress had been made in responding to queries on essential services such as electricity cut-offs and installation, health care, housing, billing systems across municipalities, fraud and corruption, customer service, long queues in frontline desks, request for tar roads and maintenance thereof to crime related matters and the hotline was an endeavour to improve these and speed up the response time.
The call centre will operate between 7am and 10 pm.
Mokonyane urged residents to provide detailed information for consistency and improving response time.
To improve on turnaround time and improve on service excellence a Memoranda of Understanding was also signed with all departments, municipalities and government agencies.
This, she said, “will ensure that we all adhere to the stipulated turn-around times to improve service to our people”.
She did however urge the public to ensure that they exhaust all channels of assistance at their local structures before phoning the hotline.
The hotline number is 0860 428 8364.
The Gauteng hotline can also be reached on:
- Email: hotline@gauteng.gov.za
- Fax: 011 429 3223
- Post: Private Bag x 115, Marshalltown, Johannesburg, 2107
