Johannesburg - Of the 16 652 complaints to the presidential hotline in the past 2014-15 financial year, 94.7 percent have been resolved, according to the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.
These are the valid complaints the presidential hotline logged from among the around 170 000 calls it received before weeding out the crank and dropped calls and those calling the wrong number.
The complaints range from “Dear Mr President, I need help with a job or a bursary…” to poor treatment by officials, slow service and late payment for rendered services, the department said in response to enquiries.
Labour relations and employment constitute 20 percent of valid complaints, followed by land and housing (15 percent), local government and basic services (13 percent), crime-related and justice matters (10 percent), social and welfare services (8 percent), civic and immigration services (7 percent) and education (6 percent).
Requests for information account for 9 percent of calls, and 2 percent of calls are compliments and suggestions. Corruption and fraud represent 1 percent of logged complaints.
The complaints are passed to relevant governance structures for resolution.
From statistics provided, it emerged that national departments are somewhat better at resolving complaints than their provincial counterparts; no statistics were provided for local government.
For the overwhelming number of complainants, the presidential hotline is their first port of call – only 7 percent have tried other departments and entities’ complaints mechanisms – and that is something the department is looking to change.
“We want to encourage more people to use the hotline as an escalation mechanism and not the first place for complaints,” the department said.
People were most likely to complain in May and from July to November. And if you live in Gauteng or KwaZulu-Natal, you’re more likely to pick up the phone and complain. Home Affairs and the police attracted most dissatisfaction.
A survey showed 67 percent rated the presidential hotline service as good to fair, with 33 percent rating it as poor.
The Star