President makes it compulsory to respond to public queries

The President, Ranil Wickramasinghe, has made it compulsory for government institutions to respond to official letters, emails and phone calls from the public. 

Accordingly, priority should be given to general letters from the public where if final replies cannot be sent immediately, an acknowledgment that the letter has been received should be sent within one week and a final reply should be sent within four weeks. 

In addition, for all official letters, the direct telephone number, fax number and e-mail address of the staff officer in charge of the subject should be mentioned below the signature of the relevant letter when sending reply letters. 

Emails sent to public email addresses of relevant offices should be checked daily and a specific officer should be assigned for the purpose, while emails to staff officers’ email addresses should also be checked daily as well. 

Emails should be responded to on the same day and if not, the relevant officer should send a reply stating that the letter was received and the time required to respond to it and  arrangements should be made to provide answers to the inquiry before the notified date. 

All phone calls to the office should be answered and if there are organizations that receive many phone calls, a specific officer should be assigned to respond to those calls, who should make a note of the caller’s name, the purpose and contact details on which a response could be provided. 

In instances where an immediate response cannot be given, the relevant staff officers or the officers in charge should respond to the caller’s query within a reasonable period.