10 Jul 2023

Come the 24th of this month the Ombudsman will, in a bid to improve accessibility and efficiency, launch a new system allowing members of the public to submit complaints from anywhere using even the simplest of cell phones. 

The system will allow anyone aggrieved by a matter over which the Ombudsman has jurisdiction, to submit their complaint by way of SMS, MMS, Whatsapp or email. The office will send its acknowledgments and responses via the same media.

Newly appointed Ombudsman, Advocate Stephen Tiroyakgosi said this recently when addressing the media. He said once the Office received a complaint through the public portal, the grievance would be processed, and assigned an officer who would receive a system generated notification. 

“The system will make the Office of the Ombudsman more accessible to members of the public and also ease communication between complainant and the office,” said adv. Tiroyakgosi. 

He said the adoption of new media by his office was a result of continuous efforts to improve services.

The Ombudsman, the fifth since the office started operations in October 1997, said the new system was particularly important as now, more than ever, and in light of its newly added human rights mandate, his office needed to be more visible and accessible, with shorter turnaround times for case resolution.

The aim, he said, and barring all shortcomings, was to resolve cases - from reporting to recommendation - within five months. Adv. Tiroyakgosi said his office was working hard to ensure reduction of complaints’ backlog, adding that on average 46 per cent of cases were resolved on time.

If wishes were horses, he said, the Ombudsman would have offices in more places around the country, but lack of resources remained a handicap, hence the new system. 

In addition, his office would, in the meantime use as a springboard to other areas, its presence in Gaborone, Francistown, Maun and Tsabong, not only to teach members of the public about its new mandate, but also to make it more accessible to them.

The Ombudsman said the public would be seeing and hearing more of him and his officers, as now with the added mandate of investigating violations of human Rights, the office needed to intensify its outreach programmes, to empower the public about those rights and available recourse through the Ombudsman should they be violated. 

Adv. Tiroyakgosi appealed to members of the media to partner with his office in its journey of fighting maladministration in the public sector as well as violation of human rights in the both public and private sectors.

“Engage us objectively without sinister motives. We are available to deal with you openly,” he said. He encouraged members of the pubic to make use of the portal. ends