The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing will join the growing list of government departments that have set up hotlines in an attempt to improve service delivery.
Agriculture minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson says the hotline will eventually provide speedy intervention in the areas of crime, security of tenure, education and training, and job and economic development stimulation.
“We will set up a national hotline for the farm-dwellers, so that those farm workers who are being abused or illegally evicted can access assistance speedily,” the minister explains.
Chief communications officer for the department Priscilla Sehoole says the details of the hotline will only be available after the department has held its farm-dweller mini-summits and main agriculture summit, later this year.
“Ensuing discussion with farm-dwellers and farm-workers will inform the structure and technology to be used for the hotline. This will take into account the needs (including among others, the types of technology easily accessible to this stakeholder group), language spoken and convenient media for feedback. This then means designing or using a system that can accommodate all these and other requirements,” Sehoole explains.
She adds that specifications for the systems will be finalised during the financial year starting on 1 April. A budget will then be formulated, taking into account all aspects of the hotline and only then will procurement procedures be implemented for the roll-out of the service.
Growing trend
These include the National Anti-Corruption Hotline run by the Public Service Commission and the Department of Trade and Industry's (DTI's) fraud hotline. The Government Employees Pension Fund also joined other government agencies and departments in creating a hotline.
In November 2009, the Gauteng province announced R3.1 million would be allocated to the creation of a public liaison hotline. Last year, the DTI also noted it would spend R5 million per year on the Public Sector SME Payment Assistance Hotline, for a period of five years.
The department, which has been struggling to make sure SMEs are paid within the prescribed 30 days for several years now, previously stated the call centre will help it clear its payment backlog.
The Department of Public Works has also established a dedicated call centre to facilitate interaction with service providers.
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