Queuing for Government Services!

Why do we as South Africans, accept to stand in queues like this? and only complain to one and other about how bad things are.

Batho Pele - Putting people first?

To me the most revealing thing about Batho Pele is its website!

While Batho Pele is a process for the user of government services, the website gives no way of addressing the system in writing.

The INTERNET contact form specifically states

"due to high volume of mail, we're not always able to provide a personal response"

Submissions to the the form resulted in no response after 3 days, although a specific request was made to establish electronic communication.

To add to the inefficincy the website was offline for several hours on 16/03/08.

Batho Pele - What is It?

Batho Pele was established by Government to

"enhance the quality and accessibility of government services by improving efficiency and accountability to the recipients of public goods and services".

promising the user of government (local, provincial and national) services that eight service delivery principles be implemented

* regularly consult with customers
* set service standards
* increase access to services
* ensure higher levels of courtesy
* provide more and better information about services
* increase openness and transparency about services
* remedy failures and mistakes
* give the best possible value for money.

Do these things seem to be being done in the areas you interact with? - definitely not for me!

What A Garbage Strike Teaches Us

Today my problems resulting from the Tshwane Municipality's failure (outlined in all its misery below) were solved by an entrepreneur who travelled the smelly streets of Tswhwane offering to remove garbage for a fee!

So what did I learn?

• There are entrepreneurs in South Africa - I think this is brilliant although it cost R20
• The Tshwane Municipality has no clue about customer care either proactively or reactively
• The Municipality doesn't have a toll free complaints number - it would cost them a fortune

The Story

Since at least last week Tuesday, Pretoria's garbage has not been collected. The garbage bins stand overflowing in the streets. Driving past is an experience in stenches.

And still I have received no notification or information from the municipality. Trying to use the complaints line was farcical at the start - long waits / cut offs etc meant we were unable to get any information about why the garbage wasn't collected.

We eventually heard from friends and saw that there was an 11/09/07 press release on the Tshwane website. This was apparently the first attempt at direct communication.

So today I tried enquiries again and had luck. Seemingly waking someone on the number from the website. When asked when I could expect my garbage to be collected, he was clearly annoyed, said he "didn't have a clue" and rattled off a number which took several retries to allow me to get it correctly.

Now the only good bit in the story - the lady on the line was totally helpful and seemed unperturbed by what could not have been the first call of the day. I can expect my garbage to be picked up after a 10 or 11 day delay!

So what did I learn?

• Entrepreneurship does exist amongst South Africans
  
• The Municipality has made no attempt to communicate with me about the suspension of service - although they have all my contacts and a meter reader was at my house today and could have dropped a note
  
• The municipality's telephonic communication is not toll free and is really useleswith this. No company would survive with this kind of service
• There is always a silver lining - the entrepreneur and the lady who gave me information

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Not True, Even in Black and White

The bottle of juice calmly claims to be "100% cranberry juice" containing apple, cranberry and other fruit juice.



What it should be is 100% pure fruit juice with cranberry! Quite a different claim for the heath conscious consumer looking for the benefits of cranberry, but getting a mainly apple juice.

A Quick View of News

The 06:00 news on SABC 2 today had 6 stories

• one on civil unrest
• five on crime
  

Is this an overzealous crime reporter or does it reflect the state of crime is South Africa - SABC is after all close to the Government, who feel its a waste for people to talk about the problem.

Just to build on my previous comment on the state of English in the civil service. The mayor of a considerable town said

"... we have rebuilded houses ... we have managed to provide our people stormwater...given them services as far as sewer is concerned ....."

In another part of the story a shack dweller complained that his home was always flooded - thanks Mr Mayor. Sarcastic I know and maybe not critical here but the man runs a town, which gives rise to possible errors!

Identifying Africa's Constraints Now?

The following is an extract from NEPAD's newsletter which I receive by email. It is not archived on their site - that stopped in February 2006.

Is this not our problem in Africa - after 5 years of NEPAD and 7 of the African Union, do we really still have to create "a common understanding of capacity gaps and constraints" and outline a "process" "towards developing a strategy".


Another high level group is going to meet for 3 days, probably from the Addis Sheraton, to continue identifying, analysing, formulating and conceptualising; not even reaching concretising and planning let alone the implementation stage.

I believe we have the international Development and NGO community to thank for this they have overdeveloped the planning skills and underdeveloped the doing skills through their systems.