Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Prime Minister (PM) Dr. Moeketsi Majoro officially launched the Citizen Feedback Mechanism (CFM) project which will establish open lines of communication between the service provision layers and
direct beneficiaries on Friday. The project will ensure that the government proactively reaches out to beneficiaries of public services directly to understand their experience of accessing public services.
This model helps establish trust and credibility of the government and its commitment to offer user centric public services, engage with the public at large and improve
services. According to the explanation by the Public Sector Modernization Project Manager Tsolo Maoeng, this pioneer system is complementary to the objectives of modernizing the public service and ushering
in a data-driven decision-making model where organizational decisions are based on actual data analysis of results rather than intuition or observation.
“This aligns well with work delivered by the same project through other pillars on strategic planning and fiscal management and strengthening national statistics. “We trust that this marks the
starting point for a broader agenda for digital transformation, business re-engineering and establishment of an interoperability framework to ensure comprehensiveness of data from different existing system for improved decision
making,” Maoeng said. He further added that they thank the World Bank which has been key in providing both technical support and the financial resources to make the Government of Lesotho’s intentions of building
this platform a reality. “I advise the government of Lesotho stakeholders to take full ownership of this platform and take leverage of resulting analysis for data-driven decision-making.
To use this platform as a benchmark for liaising with citizens and thereby improve accountability and transparency and also to model grievance redress mechanisms for specific service sector
based on this system to ensure continual strengthening of service delivery practices across government departments and agencies and most importantly to
assure strategic allocation of resources to points of most need,” Maoeng noted. The Minister of Transport Hon. Tšoeu Mokeretla said this program marks a very important milestone in the history of
Lesotho, saying different governments ruled but service delivery continued to decline with negative impacts to the development of the economy. ”People from all
sectors have been complaining about poor services, but because of the absence of the proper channels and monitoring systems in place, such complaints often
fell on deaf ears. This project is among others aiming at analyzing public sector performance by utilizing data through information technology,” Mokeretla
stated. He explained that the feedback will be collected from end users and be analyzed to identify problematic areas and the results will then be used to assist relevant officers in taking evidence based
corrective measures. “The development processes of this project would have been incomplete without the involvement of the very same citizens. In this regard
and through voluntary participation, the citizens from Maseru, Mohale’s Hoek and Thaba-Tseka shared information about their service experience in the public
sector, the challenges faced and how in their opinion such challenges could be addressed. “The involvement of the citizens in the development stages presents two key advantages; it is ownership of the
project and it is also their ability to hold government accountable. These two pillars will contribute positively to increase efficiency of service delivery
thereby leading to improved citizenship engagement and satisfaction as government will be obliged to live up to the expectations of the citizens,” the
Minister of Transport enlightened. Mokeretla appealed to the members of the public to actively participate in this important project so that service delivery
becomes the collective responsibility. “There will be free and easy access to enable everybody to express their views without fear and favor,” he stated.
Meanwhile Dr. Majoro highlighted that the project will help the government to reinforce its services in regard to the public opinions. “The public’s opinions will be put
together in the form of utilizing the internet and cellphones. The person who received the services will be asked to express thoughts about the acquired
services from the government ministry through a cellphone. These opinions will be compiled every month in order to build up a report on the services provided
by the government ministries,” he explained. He said this project is the first of its kind that will help to dig deeper on the researches made by the government
and strengthen its responsibilities. “The public will try by all means to liberate us from all the pains, obstacles and all related things which caused
discomfort towards them. This is the right time that you have to be engaged fully in the project, so that together we can get the valuable outcomes,” Majoro noted.
He further indicated that the project was inspired by research within the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transport. “What we have learned in these two ministries is that the public is
not satisfied, concerning low provision of services by the government and the poor public service through their civil servants. This assessment shows that under
the supervision and support of the Ministers and Principal Secretaries, serious measures have to be taken to accommodate the public and to ensure that the services
are upgraded,” he enlightened. Majoro added that in order to strengthen the project further, the government will supply a call center number that will be used by the public to report their concerns over the services they acquired and get assistance from the government where necessary.
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