President Ranil Wickremesinghe, on Tuesday (11), ordered the streamlining the process of responding to letters, emails and phone calls, addressed to state institutions.
The President said currently people wasted their time, energy and money travelling to government institutions, personally.
A letter to this effect has been sent to all ministry secretaries, provincial chief secretaries and Heads of departments. It has been signed by the Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils and Local Government.
Priority should be given to letters from the public to government institutions, and in case final replies cannot be sent immediately, an interim reply stating that the letter had been received should be sent within one week and a final reply should be sent within four (04) weeks.
In addition, when responding to all official letters, the direct telephone number, fax number and e-mail address of the staff officer in charge of the matter should be mentioned below the signature of the relevant letter when sending reply letters.
E-mails sent to public e-mail addresses of relevant offices should be checked daily and a specific officer should be assigned for the purpose. E-mails to staff officers’ e-mail addresses should also be checked daily.
Efforts should be made to respond to e-mails the same day and if the relevant officer cannot answer them on the same day, they should send a reply stating that the letter was received, and the time required to respond to it. In the same way, arrangements should be made to provide answers to the inquiry within a reasonable time/ before the notified date.
All phone calls to the office should be answered and if there are organizations/departments that receive many phone calls, a specific officer should be assigned to respond to those calls. The relevant officer, appointed to respond to these calls, should make a note of the caller’s name, the purpose of the call, and contact details, on which a response could be forwarded.
In instances where an immediate response cannot be given, the relevant staff officers/officers, in charge, should take steps to respond to the caller’s query within a reasonable period.
