Zuma's call centre needs more workers-STAR NEWSPAPER *17 March 2010, 23:11* **
<http://adserver.adtech.de/?adlink|585|1405044|0|170|AdId=2754016;BnId=8;itime=890159747;key=news+south%20africa;> Many disgruntled South Africans are left on hold due to a lack of staff at the presidential call centre. The lack of capacity due to limited budget was the main concern raised by chief whips of various political parties who on Wednesday visited the two call centres in Pretoria's Union Buildings and the State Information and Technology Centre (Sita) in Centurion. "We are amazed that the president was able to work on this initiative speedily. It gives the presidency a distinctive character, but the only issue was the capacity," said ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga. Sita was contracted to help the government. "Staff capacity is not where it's supposed to be... They are working at a 50-percent capacity of what they should be doing," said Pan Africanist Congress chief whip Letlapa Mphahlele. He also said that Parliament needed to ensure that "nothing is left hanging" when it comes to issues of corruption reported at the call centres. Issues of corruption were channelled to various governmental departments. The delegation also heard that about 30 calls received per month were complaints about corruption in the housing sector with fingers being pointed at councillors. The top four government departments that receive the most referrals were human settlements, home affairs and labour, as well as the South African Police Service. Motshekga, who acknowledged that service delivery backlogs in the country were huge, said they would recommend to Parliament the need to increase capacity. "We are working on a cheap budget," said Sita chairperson Zodwa Manase, who asked the delegation to help the organisation access funds. "The more capacity we have, the more calls we will be able to take and more people will be helped." The hotline was opened on October 27, 2009 with budget standing at R5-million before doubling. There had been numerous complaints about dropped calls and the time it took for calls to be answered. Presidency spokesperson Vusi Mona said complaints about the call centre's service were being addressed, adding that there was 90 percent resolution rate compared to other government departments. Out of the 44 000 calls logged since the establishment of the hotline, only 20 000 had been resolved. Defending this problem, Motshekga said what was important was the fact that mechanisms were put in place to follow up with callers. The calls received throughout the hotline have also dropped from over 200 000 in September last year when the pilot project began, to just below 40 000 in February this year. When questioned if this was not an indication that people lost confidence in the service, Mona said: "People have now realised that this is the last resort where other systems have failed... One has to got through various channels first". Zuma, who himself has visited the call centre and listened to an elated complainant, established the hotline to improve access of the public to the government. - Sapa -- Gugu Ndima +27 76 783 1516 -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
