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15 Sep 2009

The Presidential Public Liaison Service and Hotline 17737 (1 PRES) is a service delivery improvement intervention that assists with planning, monitoring and evaluation of government performance in the delivery of services. The increased interaction with the public enables government to be better informed on where the problem areas are in service delivery.

The public is advised to first pursue all their service delivery complaints with their local and provincial complaints structures. Only when their issues are not resolved, the public should escalate their challenges to the President's hotline and upon receipt of poor service elsewhere in the government system.

With the help of the Public Liaison Officers in departments and provinces, members of the public will be provided with feedback on their queries. There is a team who follow queries through the relevant channels until they are resolved.

Public servants should respond effectively to queries and in a professional manner, in line with the principles of Batho Pele.

Government will do its best not to leave any query unattended. However, members of the public should refrain from calling the President's Hotline if they do not have serious queries.

Prank calls are unnecessary and they prevent other important queries from being resolved.

If the lines are busy, members of the public may direct their queries through the following communication channels:
Fax: 086 681 0987 or 012-323 8246
E-mail: president@po.gov.za
Batho Pele Call Centre: 1020

Alternatively, you may refer to the government website for general information or to access departmental or provincial websites. Go to http://www.gov.za and http://www.info.gov.za. For government services, the direct link is http://www.services.gov.za.

A day after the soft launch the call volumes and variation are as follows:
* Call volumes are still quite high ranging from 1 100 to about 1 500 an hour. In the last hour 1 158 calls were received.
* The Hotline today received 11 959 calls from 6h00 to 13h30, 8 001 got through to the welcome message and made their choice of language, 3 958 did not get through.
* Of the 8 001 calls that came through the welcome message and made language choice, 492 were answered (handled) by the agents with the remaining 7 509 being abandoned due to high call volumes.
* There is also a high prank call and or drop-call rate, due to poor cellular connectivity in the region of 50 to 60%. Thirty-one agents are handling call logging and routing them to the public liaison structures across the country.

For further enquiries contact:
Mr Vusi Mona
Cell: 076 682 0079
E-mail: vusi@po.gov.za

Issued by: The Presidency
15 September 2009

Issued by: The Presidency
15 Sep 2009

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