Hotline helps pay R270m to SMEs

The Presidential Hotline has facilitated payments in excess of R270 million to small enterprises, says President Jacob Zuma.

Speaking in his response to the debate on the state of the nation address, Zuma also revealed that as of 15 December 2011, the call centre had answered in excess of 25 000 calls.

The hotline was first introduced in September 2009 and registered over 4000 valid queries within the first week of operation.  Introduced as a communication platform for citizens, the Presidency noted that its introduction was long overdue.

 The hotline was originally allocated a budget of R4 million. Additional allocations of R7.6 million were made – however the initial IT allocation of R1.7 million was not increased.

Last year, the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation revealed that an additional R16.254 million has been allocated for the payment of service providers and the operational expenditure for the Presidential Hotline. Another R4.026 million will also be received from the Presidency for the function hotline

“We continue to monitor the performance of the call centre to ensure continuous improvement,” Zuma stated.

In September last year, the Presidency announced that the hotline had received 111 751 valid queries, since it was first introduced. Of these queries, 84 700 of the cases had been attended to and resolved.

The public use 17737 which is a toll free number for the Presidential Hotline. All calls to this number are answered at SITA which is the first point of contact. Valid cases are logged into a system and given a reference number.