The government is trying to deal with people not getting through to the presidential hotline due to high call volumes, President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday.
”We are working to address this challenge to ensure that we give every call the attention it deserves,” Zuma said at the launch of the presidential hotline, 17737, in Pretoria.
The fact that some people could not get through should not be seen as a problem, but rather a success, as it indicated the number of people wanting to voice their concerns to their government.
”We will continue to improve the service each day until we reach a stage where each South African is able to obtain quality service with ease, as it should be.”
The hotline was piloted on September 14. Zuma said common queries and problems across all provinces related to housing, water and electricity.
Housing matters included unfinished reconstruction and development programme houses, the slow pace of housing delivery and corruption at municipalities.
There were also many queries about the Department of Labour relating to corruption, unfair dismissals and general unemployment problems.
In addition, there were complaints to the departments of home affairs and land reform about inefficient and corrupt officials.
Zuma said the hotline was aimed at improving service delivery and was not a public relations exercise.
On its first day of operation, the hotline had 27 000 callers. More than 2 500 calls were received in the first hour, increasing to 7 000 in the third hour.
Calls from Gauteng made up 30% of all calls received, followed by Limpopo, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape.
The Northern Cape and Mpumalanga had registered the lowest number of enquiries.
Zuma said many calls by young people related to failure to pay school and university fees, emphasising the challenges of access to higher education by the poor.
”Many callers are people who have spent months or even years trying to get their problems resolved to no avail,” he said.
He said other government interaction with the public, in the form of imbizos would continue. — Sapa