The Eastern Cape is once again in hot water, this time over the Presidential Hotline. A dismal 1, 9 % of Presidential Hotline cases referred to the Eastern Cape have been resolved. The Eastern Cape was the worst performing province when it comes to resolving cases. In the case of Kwazulu-Natal scored 2, 69% and Gauteng 3, 26%.

When it came to cases resolved, the Western Cape stands out head and shoulders above the other provinces, with 53,58% of cases resolved. The next best was the Northern Cape with 9, 7% of cases resolved.

“These figures reflect very poorly on the Eastern Cape and the lack of political will in provincial departments to resolve problems,” says Legislature Leader Bobby Stevenson. “

The Premier needs to take note of these statistics and act upon them. The general lacklustre performance of the Eastern Cape is once again highlighted.

“The very fact that one needs a Presidential Hotline is a sad indictment of the poor manner in which queries are dealt with by the provinces. The results to date clearly indicate what’s wrong with the Eastern Cape.

“Service delivery in this province is never going to improve unless there is leadership and accountable governance. If the Presidential Hotline can be treated in such a manner one can only imagine what happens to the ordinary voter.

“Even MPLs struggle to get answers out of provincial departments and often have to resort to asking official parliamentary questions to resolve elementary queries. In contrast, the DA government of the Western Cape is a shining example of how government should deal with citizens’ queries. The message that flows from these statistics is that if you want service delivery, copy what the DA is doing in the Western Cape,” he said

A total of 674, 884 calls were received between September 2009 and February 2010 of which only 19 885 were resolved.

“I have put in a parliamentary question to the Premier wanting to know the reason for the poor response rate,” Stevenson said.