Zuma's hotline going cold
2009-12-02 16:02
Cape Town - The presidency has conceded that less than a third of the complaints lodged to President Jacob Zuma's corruption hotline have been handled successfully since the service was launched in mid-September.
It said that between September 14 and November 27, there were 30 650 calls to the hotline of which 9 190 cases were resolved.
The presidency also said the hotline was not able to cope with the number of calls from South Africans complaining about delivery issues.
"The presidential hotline is not able to handle the call load at this stage. Even if we were to scale up the number of call agents, we can only do so up to a certain limit - given that resources are limited."
Numerous complaints from DA
The presidency said provincial departments have been slow in responding to complaints listed with the hotline, resolving only 18% received in the past three months.
National departments fared somewhat better with 33%.
It said Zuma has urged all premiers and ministers to take steps to remedy the situation and "ensure all enquiries transferred to them for investigation are responded to urgently and efficiently".
It said the nature of complaints included crime, housing shortages, unfair labour practices, difficulties with banks and insurance companies, breaches of contract by government departments and requests for funding, including bursaries.
There were also numerous complaints from political parties "especially the Democratic Alliance", which has been scathing about the quality of service.
Make deal with cellphone operators
The Independent Democrats called for a bigger budget for the hotline.
"It is imperative that government responds to our people's needs faster than this. We therefore call on the presidency to urgently look at hiring more call agents," the party's national organiser Joe Mcgluwa said.
He suggested the presidency negotiate a deal with cellphone operators to enable the public to reach the hotline toll-free from their mobiles, as is the case with landlines.
According to the presidency, 95% of calls to the hotline are made from mobile phones.
The hotline started out with a budget of R4m, but was allocated an additional R7.6m in the adjustments budget in October.
- SAPA