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The presidential hotline has failed the official opposition
Democratic Alliance (DA), its parliamentary leader, Athol Trollip, has
said.
“Calls made to the hotline have revealed that none of the
complaints we registered with the hotline in 2009 have been resolved,” Trollip
said in a statement.
Of the complaints made by the DA, 55% were still logged as “under
investigation”, 18% had to be re-logged and reopened as new cases, 18% were no
longer logged on the hotline system and 9% had been referred back to the DA with
the request that “we deal with it ourselves”.
Hotline operators had been unable to give any information about the
complaints still under investigation, even though some of them had been lodged
more than four months ago, Trollip said.
“It is clear that there is absolutely no urgency on the part of the
ANC government to address complaints from the public.”
He said two DA complaints about incomplete RDP houses in Limpopo
were registered as “resolved” without the party receiving any feedback from the
Department of Human Settlements.
“Subsequent visits to these RDP housing developments have revealed
that no improvements have been made to date and we have therefore had to re-log
these complaints as new cases.
“This means that the process has had to start all over again,
nearly three months after we first registered our complaints, while the people
living in these houses have continued to suffer as a result of the Department of
Human Development dragging its feet.”
Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane had said there were
tracking and monitoring mechanisms in place to evaluate performance.
“It appears from our experiences with the hotline that these
tracking and monitoring systems and various channels of engagement are nothing
more than a figment of Chabane’s imagination,” Trollip said.
He said administration of the hotline was recently moved from the
Government Communications and Information System to Chabane’s office so it could
be integrated into his ministry’s monitoring and evaluation work.
The DA had hoped that the move would change the way in which the
hotline was operated and that Chabane would use the opportunity to demonstrate
his seriousness in holding cabinet members and department officials accountable
for their actions and failures.
Trollip said the DA would formally ask Chabane for the details of
what had been done about each of its complaints and whether any officials had
been held accountable for the problems plaguing the hotline.
The DA would continue to monitor the presidential hotline in 2010
and would report back on the situation, he said.
