Heavens "call center". This article made me consider the number of "call" (prayers) that our Father receives each day. I am sure that he tells his angels to also treat each call as if it was the most important one and not to close the call early. I would like to hear your comments on this article.

YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US (www.thestar.co.za, 20091014) – President Jacob Zuma. During the election campaign we committed ourselves to promote effective two-way communication between South Africans and the government. We said we needed to change the way the government relates to the people, not as a slogan but in practical terms. We undertook to stay in touch with the people, listen to their needs and respond. One of the response mechanisms we promised was a presidential hotline, to enable citizens to raise their concerns directly with the Presidency. The launch of the hotline and public liaison service on a pilot basis on September 14 took the government to a new level in terms of communication with the public to improve service delivery. We have found ourselves engaged in an unprecedented, massive conversation with the nation. The hotline got 312 137 calls from people between September 14 and October 8. This excludes faxes and e-mails. My e-mail address, president@po.gov.za, is overflowing. We got 27 000 calls on day one - nearly 2 500 in the first hour, hitting 7 000 by the third hour. This service was clearly long overdue. There are three levels of interaction. The Presidency has 21 hotline and public liaison staff, backed by 50 call centre agents at the State Information Technology Agency (Sita), and 43 public liaison officers in the nine offices of the premiers and the 34 national departments responsible for follow-ups. For the staff, every hour is spent listening, recording, responding and even counselling countless people in distress. Many callers have spent months, even years, trying to get their problems resolved, to no avail. I met the 43 public liaison officers from national departments and provinces as well as the 21 Presidency call centre staff on September 14 and warned them that the work would be emotionally draining. I said they were the face of the government and should project the caring government we want to be. On 6 October I visited the 50 staff members at Sita and shared the message with them as well. They have all handled their work professionally, as evidenced by the letters and e-mails of gratitude we get from citizens who have been helped. The excitement of it all is to see people's problems resolved and to see the frowns turn to smiles. The intention is to introduce a culture of taking people seriously, regardless of their station in life. When citizens call a government department they must be treated with courtesy and be helped as soon as possible. Common queries and complaints relate to housing, and access to water and electricity. There are many inquiries about unemployment, which take the form of requests for help to find jobs or to overturn dismissals as well as to report corrupt practices. There are various inquiries regarding access to grants, special pensions, access to IDs or allegations of corruption in the social grants system - something that the government has been attending to for years. Many young people contact the centre to seek help with outstanding school or university fees. There are also many cases relating to abuse of power by government officials. The service is clearly helpful to people who had no way of ever accessing authority to get help. The hotline staff was contacted late one night to help an elderly woman sleeping on the bench at Moroka Police Station in Soweto. She had nowhere to go. The Department of Social Development was contacted and she was moved to an old-age home the next day. A woman complained about a police station, where she opened a case against a stalker. The police had claimed that it was not a serious matter. After intervention from the presidential call centre, the police are now investigating. As the government we undertook to take cases against women and children seriously and this must be done. A man whose RDP house had been attached by a bank e-mailed the presidential call centre, which negotiated with the bank. The house was about to be auctioned off, but now the family have their home back. The man will pay back the money, and is receiving debt counselling. A man called about burst sewerage pipes in his area - these were fixed a day after his call. Most of the people who call the hotline or send letters want the inquiries to remain confidential. This limits our ability to share our many success stories with the public. The functioning of the presidential call centre is continually being improved on the basis of lessons learnt so far. One of the greatest challenges has been the high volume of calls, which meant that people have not been able to get through. Our technical teams are looking into this. Callers spend at least 20 minutes on the phone explaining their predicament. Our staff has been instructed to treat each call as if it was the only one - they are not allowed to drop callers before the end of the conversation. That reduces the number of calls they can take. The presidential hotline and public liaison service do not replace the existing hotlines and public liaison facilities of departments, provinces or municipalities. It is intended to be used as a last resort where other systems have failed. There are various call centres in the government. They need to be improved to reduce the pressure on the presidential hotline, to enable it to deal with cases that provinces or departments were not responsive to. Among some of its immediate benefits, the presidential hotline has already helped to re-awaken public liaison as a key function across the government. The numerous government departments across all spheres already perform functions similar to those carried out by the new public liaison function at the Presidency, but there was no co-ordination and integration. Now, public liaison officers across the government are beginning to form a strong network, sharing experiences and best practices and working together towards the common goal of making the government more responsive to people's needs. The presidential hotline will also be used for monitoring and evaluation. Through the inquiries and complaints that we get, the government will be able to spot patterns in relation to service delivery problems so as to make more informed decisions about the nature of the interventions required. The long-term solution is that the public service needs to change the way it works, as well as its attitude towards the public. We have started meeting senior public servants to explain our vision and what change we expect. I met school principals in August and the police in September. I will meet various other categories of public servants such as health professionals, social workers, local government practitioners and others. We want them to know that the people come first in everything we do, and we want excellence. There is no place for complacency, cynicism or excuses.

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