Develop and review Clients Service Charters of Health, Education and Water sectors: PROMISE COMPROMISED

Client service charter is a framework that outlines the relationship between an organization and its "customers". In this case, the organization in question is the government through its various Ministries (Health, Education and Water in this case) and us citizens as its customers. It serves as a contract promising a certain quality of service that citizens can expect. A Client Service Charter (CSC) is an important document, one that citizens can use to hold the government department providing a social service (Hospitals, Schools) to task if they fail to achieve their stated goals. It also creates a transparent environment where civil servants are fully aware of their roles and responsibilities as are the citizenry.

The OGP commitment made regarding Client Service Charters is as follows:

#3.2 Develop and/or review Clients Service Charters  of Health, Education and Water sectors for both national and facility level services, and make them accessible to citizens.

We went through the websites for the Ministries outlined and looked for whether Client Service Charters were easily accessible and understandable.

Ministry of Health: None Online

Ministry of Education: None Online

Ministry of Water: Client Service Charter available here (Kiswahili version only)

Some key points from the Charter:

• A promise to release statistics that deal with water and sewage services within 5 days of request.
• Time to complete various tasks are given. Examples include respond to media (2 days), respond to queries from customers (1 day), inform winning and losing bidders of tenders (within 90 days).
• Rights of customers
• Responsibilities of Ministry towards customers

Of the three Ministries for which Client Service Charters are promised, only the Ministry of Water has one easily accessible online. Due to the lack of CSC in two key Ministries, we rate this PROMISE COMPROMISED.