Why can’t they just communicate with the public?

I READ your column “Ask Georgie!” in the Pretoria News (“Red tape is enough to drive you crazy”) with great interest because I had endured the same sort of frustration with the Department of Labour recently.

I submitted a UIF claim at their Nana Sita Street offices on May 13 and was surprised to get an SMS the same afternoon confirming receipt of my claim, and advising that progress on it would be communicated within 35 days. A case number was allocated.

After 35 days had passed I sent a reply requesting a progress report on my claim but there was no response.

On July 11, I sent an e-mail to the person specified on the Department of Labour letter for UIF claims but no reply was forthcoming.

After logging on to the UIF website, I called each of the numbers listed but nobody answered the phone.

In desperation, I copied the complaints e-mail address and the person listed on the Department of Labour website as the head of department, but still to no avail.

Finally, I decided to return to the Department of Labour offices on August 22 and joined the queue at 7am.

At 7.50am, I managed to speak to an employee who told me to go to the customer queries room only to find that there was a queue snaking out of the room and along the passage.

After 8am, it was announced that the office had gone “off-line” and could not say when the system would back on line.

I decided to call it a day and return some other time but when I reached reception I thought that I would ask if the person I had e-mailed my customer complaint to was in her office.

Fortunately, she was and a very helpful security guard escorted me to the official’s office on the 5th floor.

I showed my documentation to her secretary and after waiting about 10 minutes she returned to explain that I had not earned enough “credits” and needed to work for another three years before I could get a claim paid out.

Why couldn’t the department have replied via SMS months ago to explain all this this to me? Frustrated