Presidential hotline launched today

By Khanyisa Tabata
14 September 2009

From 9am this morning members of the public were able to dial 17737 to speak directly to the President’s office.

Twenty one specially trained public liaison officers took their seats and started to handle calls and responding to general pubic inquiries or complaints over service delivery and maybe ask questions about government.

The staff is being supported by a network of 43 public liaison officers. Each department and each province has assigned a public liaison officer who will be dealing with enquires that cannot be solved by the Presidency alone. They will have the responsibility of following up the public enquiries and complaints lodged, and ensuring that all are attended to efficiently.

Callers will have the option of being helped in a variety of languages and calls will be recorded and logged for quality, tracking and monitoring purposes.

A call log will assist the Presidency in monitoring turnaround times as well as gathering statistics such as which department has received the most complaints.

There are plans to have the service taken to local government level, including rural municipalities and districts.

The call centre is expecting to handle around 1500 calls per day and should be operational between 7.30am and 10pm.