I read with much interest our Prime Minister?s recent exhortation to our Public Service that it should ?transform itself into effective tool to develop policies to uphold values of democracy and good governance?, as he put it, advocating in the process better customer service.

The Mauritian Public Service is at a crossroad. To survive in our highly globalized world, any organisation, public or private, must have one single and overriding focus: service to its customers. It needs to understand and anticipate their needs and deliver consistently outstanding service to meet these needs.

Whenever I deal with our Public Service, whether it is to do with the registration of land, the payment of my electricity or water account, telephone, the latest parking ticket or my income tax, I cannot help harping on the negative. I cannot help become infuriated when I am told that

? ?Mr So-and-So will only be in his office at 9.00 a.m. because our office hours are from 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.?

? ?You have to go physically to Port Louis to make this payment ? you can?t do it from Quatre Bornes.?

? ?We don?t deal with this problem here, Sir ? you?ll have to talk to another department.?

? ?We have to close ? it?s lunch time now.?

? ?I?ll get back to you first thing tomorrow morning? - and then nothing happens.

? ?I can?t give you an answer on this, Sir ? only my seniors are authorized to do so.?

The list goes on and on ? and I am sure that many of the readers of this column can add their own. Although some of the civil servants I?ve met are tremendously keen to assist and are able to so professionally, it appears, and I repeat these words: it appears, that the consensus on this island is that there is still much work to be done before our civil service becomes the ?role models? that Bérenger advocates.

Strategies

So what?s needed then? What?s needed is above all a deep, long-lasting change of attitude. A change towards becoming and acting as true professionals focussed on delivering responsive and error-free service ? one that will see to it that behaviours such as asking the caller ?Qui parle?? (in other words, are you an important person or not?); giving out wrong or incomplete information; failing to smile constantly; leaving letters unanswered; closing offices because it?s 4.00 p.m. and so on, are permanently eradicated from the mentality of our public servants.

For this profound change of attitude to occur, a comprehensive process has to be put into place.

? First, there must be undying commitment from the very top that customer service will become a crucial performance standard in the civil service ? one that could lead to promotion, demotion or outright dismissal. This is why it would be so important to specify clearly the values and behaviours one would expect from now on from all concerned.

? Second, those affected must buy into the proposed changes ? an edict from the top, even from as powerful a man as the Prime Minister, will not suffice. People change their mind-sets and behaviours only when they see the point of the proposed changes and agree with them.

? Thirdly, implementing such a process will require a holistic view of each department concerned. Not only as Paul Bérenger has insisted, must there be a massive training effort taking place next, but extrinsic factors such as reporting structures, management and operational processes must be in place and correctly aligned with the envisioned change to ensure that they all meet the desired objective. In other words, there is no point in expecting excellent customer service if to begin with, I, the public servant , am underpaid or work in some crummy office with furniture dating to the second world war.

If Bérenger is really serious about the formidable change facing our Public Service, the road ahead is going to be long and arduous. It is never an easy or straightforward task to introduce change in an organisation ? even less so in as huge an entity as the public service. Achieving it successfully however, can be immensely rewarding.

Prof E Charoux

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