admin
WE welcome the setting up of a Presidential complaints hotline and a complaints mechanism within ministries to address citizen concerns over public sector service delivery and hope it will go a long way in enhancing openness in government and improve efficiency.
We reported yesterday that Zimbabweans will be able to call a hotline directly to the Office of the President and Cabinet for free to register complaints about poor service from public sector workers and corrupt activities. The initiative is in line with the national economic blueprint — the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset) — which seeks to strengthen institutional structures and systems through the establishment of Results Based Management (RBM).
We feel this is a step in the right direction which will not only foster a culture of responsiveness and accountability in government departments but will improve in a big way, the manner in which the government bureaucracy is run. President Robert Mugabe will now be able to hold his ministers and senior civil servants to account for their failure to deliver as he will interact on a regular basis with ordinary Zimbabweans from all walks of life.
Corruption and a general lack of dedication to duty are entrenched in various government departments and one of the ways of exposing and stopping this rot is through allowing citizens to report cases of abuse of office and poor service delivery. That it will now be done straight to the highest office in the land is a milestone development and we commend it.
Complaints hotlines are not peculiar to Zimbabwe but are used by governments the world over to connect with their citizens and enhance their operations. In the United States, the public can call President Barack Obama on four dedicated hotlines and there is also a mail and email service where Americans can write to the President to express their opinions on a variety of issues.
There are links to other government departments on the White House website which citizens can use to access them. In South Africa, the government launched the Presidential hotline on September 14, 2009, as part of a drive to change the way government works. It said it wanted to ‘‘establish a culture of taking citizens seriously, and putting them first in our work as government’.’
According to the South Africa government, the Presidential hotline provides an appeal mechanism for citizens whose complaints have not been attended to satisfactorily by other spheres of government or departments. President Jacob Zuma undertook to update the public from time to time with regards to the performance of the hotline. Since its launch, the hotline has done much to promote government responsiveness and accountability.
It has received a large volume of calls, indicating both the need for such a service and the eagerness of South Africans to interact with government. Through this service, hundreds of people have managed to have problems attended to and resolved, and it has set a new trend with regard to citizen care.
Speaking during a media workshop in Harare on Tuesday, Ambassador Mary Mubi, the senior principal director in the Office of the President and Cabinet, said the government is reforming the way it carries out its business and was pushing for a more transparent government, hence a number of systems were being put in place to enhance communication.
These include toll-free numbers for ministries, availing government application forms on the internet instead of people travelling to government offices to access them as well as posting standard questions and answers on the websites of ministries. “In an attempt to give focused attention to service delivery in the public sector, the Department of Public Affairs and Knowledge Management in the Office of the President and Cabinet in collaboration with ministries has established complaints mechanism focal points in ministries and distributed a concept paper on service delivery in the public sector,” said Ambassador Mubi.
Client service charters for the public sector would be launched next month in Bulawayo and government would run training programmes to ensure that the complaints handling is carried out at all levels.
There will be a feedback mechanism to enhance service delivery at all levels and the complaints management systems will be supported by ICT platforms and the Office of the President and Cabinet will have access to all complaints lodged on line.
This is certainly welcome news for many Zimbabweans who are frustrated with service delivery at government departments. We encourage citizens to take advantage of this platform to air their views and report instances of inefficiency and corruption. In the same vein, we call on government to improve its monitoring systems to ensure that all departments attend to complaints from citizens promptly.
Online Reporter
Bongani Moyo