A cry for help from a man desperate for a date was one of two million text messages sent to Indonesia’s president since he set up the service last year, a report said on Wednesday.
”I need a job Mr President! I also need a wife and I want to have a date! Please help me! You are the president, right?” said one of the messages sent to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Koran Tempo reported.
As part of an anti-corruption campaign, Yudhoyono created the hotline number and a post box for the public to report abuses of power or bureaucratic problems.
The phone line soon crashed after it was inundated by thousands of text messages and calls so the president introduced a new number, 9949, which corresponds to his birth date.
Of the two million text messages, just 300 000 actually contained complaints, while of 18 000 letters, only one-third were serious, according to a book on the complaints launched on Tuesday.
The remainder were calls for help. Some demanded cash to set up small businesses or build places of worship, while many asked for assistance finding a job.
One woman even asked the president for a cellphone, saying that her husband refused to lend his to her.
Yudhoyono, who took office in October 2004, has pledged to improve Indonesia’s chronic bureaucratic snarls and get tough on corruption, which has poisoned the economy and deterred foreign investment. – Sapa-AFP