Presidency Quarterly Update on the Presidential Hotline

2 December 2009

PRESIDENCY QUARTERLY UPDATE ON THE PRESIDENTIAL HOTLINE

We launched the Presidential Hotline on 14 September 2009, as part of our drive to change the way government works.

We wanted to establish a culture of taking citizens seriously, and putting them first in our work as government. The Presidential Hotline provides an appeal mechanism for citizens whose complaints have not been attended to satisfactorily by other spheres of government or departments.

President Jacob Zuma undertook to update the public from time to time with regards to the performance of the Hotline.

Since its formation, the Hotline has done much to promote government’s responsiveness and accountability. It has received a large volume of calls, indicating both the need for such a service and the eagerness of South Africans to interact with government.  Through this service, hundreds of people have managed to have problems attended to and resolved, and it has set a new trend with regard to citizen care. 

The President receives complaints relating to the following:

• Municipal services - electricity, sanitation, housing, water supply, sanitation.
• Labour: unfair labour practices, dismissals.
• Housing shortages, delays and corruption in the system.
• Land claims delays and failure to resolve them.
• Complaints by victims of crime, persons requesting pardons.
• Poverty relief assistance.
• Financial services: complaints about banks, insurance companies.
• Complaints about parastatals.
• Alleged breach of contracts by government departments, for example departments failing to pay for services rendered or paying late.
• Requests for funding for bursaries, community projects, donations, business projects.
• Complaints from political parties especially the Democratic Alliance.
  
  

While the Hotline has been successful in resolving enquiries, the response of some government Departments and Provinces to enquiries has been far from satisfactory. The President’s view that we need to do more to improve the attitude and performance of our public service to citizen care, has been proven correct.

In the first month of the hotline operation, only 12% of the opened calls with provinces were resolved, 26% of calls in October and 31% in November. Overall, only 18% of total calls opened with provinces in the past three months were resolved.

With the National Departments, in September only 19% of calls opened were resolved. However, the average response over the past three months is 33%

The President has directed all Ministers and Premiers to prepare turnaround strategies. Each department and Premier’s Office must indicate what will be done to ensure that all enquiries transferred to them for investigation are responded to urgently and efficiently.

The Presidency has treated this financial year as a pilot phase and will continue to improve the service and deal with whatever bottlenecks still remain. It is an effective service and we are daily encouraged by the excitement of people whose enquiries have been resolved.

The Minister in the Presidency, Collins Chabane is working with Departments to ensure that the situation is resolved without delay and that Departments put more effective mechanisms and resources to respond to enquiries. He is also working to ensure that the service performs better at a technical and human resource level.

QUARTERLY REPORT: PERCENTAGE OF CALLS RESOLVED PER PROVINCE IN THE PERIOD  
14 SEPTEMBER – 20 NOVEMBER 2009 

Provinces	Grand total-calls received	Calls (still) Open	Calls Resolved	%  of Resolved
KwaZulu-Natal	4002	3299	703	18%
Gauteng	3166	2534	632	19%
Eastern Cape	1582	1400	182	11%
Mpumalanga	1170	1018	152	13%
Limpopo	1092	951	141	13%
North west	1035	911	124	11%
Free State	762	638	124	16%
Western Cape	515	286	229	44%
Northern Cape	245	203	42	17%

 

PERCENTAGE OF CALLS RESOLVED PER DEPARTMENT IN THE PERIOD    

14 SEPTEMBER – 20 NOVEMBER 2009

 

National Departments	Grand total-calls received	Calls (still) Open	Calls Resolved	%  of Resolved
Department of Labour	3074	1915	1159	38%
Human settlement	2321	323	1998	86%
Home affairs	1946	1380	566	28%
SAPS	1783	1579	204	11%
SASSA	899	642	257	28%
Justice and Constitutional Development	780	614	166	21%
Department of Health	359	305	54	15%
Rural Development & Land Reform	320	275	45	14%
Social development	265	124	141	53%
Higher Education and training	238	129	109	46%
Transport	201	168	33	16%
Basic Education	197	106	91	46%
Correctional Services	175	74	101	57%
Defence and Military veterans	160	121	39	24%
Trade and Industry	129	35	94	72%
Water affairs	114	104	10	9%
Public Works	75	58	17	23%
SARS	75	67	8	11%
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries	64	46	18	28%
Energy	55	50	5	9%
Independent Complaints Directorate	48	42	6	13%
Mineral Resources	44	25	19	43%
National Treasury	43	36	7	16%
Arts and Culture	37	19	18	58%
Cooperative Governance and Traditional affairs	32	25	7	21%
Women, Children and People with Disability	30	23	7	23%
GCIS	26	4	22	84%
Environmental Affairs	21	12	9	42%
Sport and Recreation	20	5	15	75%
International relations and corporation	16	10	6	37%
State Security	16	9	7	43%
Economic Development	14	10	4	25%
DPSA	14	5	9	64%
Communications	11	9	2	18%
Public enterprise	14	6	5	35%
Tourism	9	5	4	44%
Public Service commission	5	4	1	20%
Science and Technology	2	2	0	0%
Stats SA	2	2	0	0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
We re-emphasise that we will continue to work to create an interactive, responsive and caring government.

Directors-General have been instructed by their Ministers to monitor the response and resolution rates of their departments and provinces on a regular basis and to ensure that citizens’ queries are being attended to. In this respect, all Directors-General will be given access to the Hotline IT platform so that they can use it as their own monitoring tool. 

A study, led by the Department of Public Service and Administration, is currently underway to determine the functioning and effectiveness of all government call centres. Through it, we want to achieve greater efficiencies and integration of government call centres, thus resulting in better citizen care and enhanced interaction between government and our citizens.