Question NW4270 to the Minister of Public Service and Administration
05 December 2022 - NW4270
Motsepe, Ms CCS to ask the Minister of Public Service and Administration
With reference to the toll-free numbers of the Public Service Commission for the public to report corruption, which often rings with no answer and has a recording machine for all calls, what are the reasons that (a) calls are not answered and (b) potential whistle-blowers are not called back as a response to the recorded calls?
Reply:
The National Anti-Corruption Hotline (NACH) is operating from 08h00-16h30 from Monday to Friday. The NACH has a day shift due to capacity constraints as the call centre is manned by only five (5) call centre agents. When all the agents are busy, the other calls will be in the queue are automatically directed to the recording facility. In the month of October 2022, 4093 incoming calls were received by the NACH and 4033 were answered. This is indication that a large volume of calls are answered.
In addition, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has installed a recording facility to allow whistle-blowers to leave messages after hours and over weekends as viable alternative. The call centre agents process the messages and make a follow up where the whistle-blowers provide contact details.
Recorded messages are downloaded from the recording facility and processed accordingly. In cases where whistle-blowers provided contact details, the PSC calls back. However, many whistle-blowers are reluctant to leave their contact details.
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