Presidential hotline continues to grow

Collins Chabane, minister in the Presidency, has  welcomed the growth of the Presidential Hotline – but noted that some challenges still remain.

“I am pleased to announce that the hotline reached another milestone on the 24 May this year when it clogged the 100 000^th query. This proves how important the hotline has become, to the people of South Africa,” said Chabane.

According to him as at end of March 2011 over 95 000 calls had been logged nationally, of which over 71 000 were complaints. Of the total calls logged, over 67 000 calls have been resolved, which puts the resolution percentage at 70%.

In March 2010, government noted that the number of calls received had continued to decrease since the hotline was introduced in September 2009. In February 2010, the hotline recorded only 38 524 calls – a sharp decrease from the 232 643 calls received in September 2009. Over 20 000 of the 44 000 calls had been resolved by February last year.

Chabane noted that in March 2011, the various ministries received a total number of 29 000 calls and over 22 000 calls have been resolved which puts the resolution percentage at 78%. The provinces received a total number of over 29 000 calls. A total of over 8 000 calls have been resolved to date, which puts the resolution percentage at 28%.

“This is low and provinces need to improve their responses and resolve issues raised by the public,” Chabane explained.

The hotline was first introduced in September 2009, with an allocated budget of R4 million. Additional allocations of R7.6 million were made – however the initial IT allocation of R1.7 million was not increased.

“We are aware that there are still challenges with responding to all of the queries received and that there are people still awaiting assistance. We would like to assure our people that we are in the process of addressing those challenges, but progress we have made thus far shows that the hotline is maturing with time”, Chabane noted.