PUTRAJAYA, Sept 24 — In an effort to respond to public complaints quicker, and more effectively, each ministry will now have to handle its own complaints, monitored by the Public Complaints Bureau (BPA).
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low, who is in charge of BPA, said today that agencies should not be defensive but view complaints as a chance to evaluate its current modus operandi based on the complaints received.
“I’d like to emphasise the principle of ‘let managers manage’, to all public sector agencies to be fully responsible for its actions, in the service delivery system as well as the conduct of every officer.
“The public is just like the customer and each department or each agency must respond to the customer quickly and they are the one who understands the customers’ complaints much better than BPA but BPA will be monitoring them to see that the response is adequate and fast and also that the complainant will also get feed back,”
he said at the launch of the 2013 Public Complaints Bureau Seminar on managing complaints.
BPA director-general Datuk Mahani Tan Abdullah said the initiative will be under the chief secretary to the government’s key performance index (KPI) for every ministry to have its own complaints management system by next year.
According to BPA, there was a decline in complaints made to the agency, from 13,356 in 2011, 12,546 last year, to 7,432 this year, up until September 18.
Mahani told reporters that about 50 per cent of the complaints received are regarding slow feedback to the original complaints.
