The Laotian Ministry of the Interior has launched a hotline that citizens can call to request government assistance, but many are afraid to use it because callers must reveal personal information.
After dialing 1526 to report a problem, callers must also provide their names, phone numbers, and addresses so that police or officials can contact them if they need more information.
“If they call asking authorities to resolve a particular issue, the police can easily call them back after the issue has been investigated and resolved,” said a related government official, who like all sources in this report requested anonymity. for security reasons, he told the FRG Lao Service. .
The official said that since the hotline was launched on June 1, many have called asking for the ministry to resolve problems and others have called to comment on the ministry’s work, but she was not at liberty to discuss how many people have called or that. any of her requests were.
The Lao government has been using hotlines for public participation since 2016. The country’s National Assembly also has an open hotline where people can raise issues to be addressed.
But several Lao residents said they were reluctant to use the new hotline because they doubt the ministry can do anything to solve the problem and don’t want to get in trouble for reporting problems.
“If you ask the government for help in a one-party country and you ask too many times, it’s not good for you,” said one resident. “You have to reveal all your personal information so everyone is afraid to call.”
Another resident said he was not interested in using them because hotlines in the past were not effective in solving problems.
A third villager said that usually no one answers the government hotlines, so it is useless to call them.
A Lao resident who identified himself as a Christian said Christians have used the hotlines from time to time to report to the ministry when they are harassed by local authorities.
Sometimes officials come to try to fix the problem, but most of the time complaints are ignored, the person said.
“The good thing about using the hotline is that we can inform the ministry about the problems that concern us and that we need to resolve,” said the Christian. “However, many problems are still not solved… they always say that they are still working on it”
A Laotian intellectual told RFA that most people do not trust government hotlines because they fear reprisals. For example, if they revealed government corruption, the responsible officials could use the power of their office to punish them.
Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Eugene Whong.
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