Hello? Hello? No one is calling the government's Amnesty call centre

The Minister of Public Works established the Amnesty Call Centre six months ago to handle the massive amount of phone calls it anticipated from South Africans who wanted to call the government and account for all the state land that they might have. Great idea, except for one thing: no one is calling. Even though the call centre operators go to their Pretoria office faithfully from 7am to 4pm each weekday, the Minister says that "the public has not actively responded to the call". I wonder why.

The Amnesty Call Centre was meant to help the department of Public Works complete its audit of state lands, but it is having a hard time because of the size of the task. So it has reached out the public with this call centre idea, staffing it with employees who earn Level 7 salaries and work on six-month renewable contracts. That's about R140,000 per operator per annum - if they last beyond six months. Given the lack of public response to the call centre, it's a complete waste of money.

In order to maximize the effectiveness of the call centre, it is vital that the services provided by this facility are properly publicised. Furthermore, the Ministry needs to monitor the call centre carefully in order to make an accurate assessment of the facility's viability. I will today be writing to the Minister in this regard and requesting that her department conduct a full review of the call centre in 6 months. Should this facility still be operating under capacity after this time, a decision will need to be taken regarding its future.

Please find the DA Parliamentary question and reply regarding this issue here. 

Statement issued by John Steenhuisen MP, DA Shadow Minister of Public Works, September 29 2011

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