Participação dos cidadãos na melhoria da prestação dos serviços públicos: caso do livro de reclamações e sugestões do instituto nacional de transportes terrestres (INATTER) – Repartição da Província de Maputo (RPM) – 2014-2015

Abstract

The provision of public services is the main purpose of the creation of public institutions. However, the way public services are delivered must meet the expectations of citizens - users - and how to make this possible is to ensure their effective participation. Thus, the participation of citizens in the process of public management has stimulated debates in the academic and social spheres. In the Mozambican context, the provision of public services has faced two challenges, namely: service and the quality of services provided, ie the relationship between citizens and public servants who have looked at recipients of public services as beneficiaries, marking a posture of authority and the constant breach of their expectations. For this reason, the principle of citizen participation was recommended for improving the provision of public services, one of the mechanisms being the institutionalization of complaint and suggestion books. The present research sought to analyze the real contribution of the books of complaints and suggestions in the improvement of the provision of public services, taking as a case study the National Land Transport Institute - Office of Maputo Province, where users sought to identify their satisfaction in relation to the services provided, the use of the complaint and suggestion books and the informal mechanisms that have been used to present their complaints. Similarly, the institution sought to know the institutional procedures and ways of handling and valuing complaints and suggestions from citizens. From the study, it was concluded that the complaint and suggestion books mechanism has not contributed to the improvement in the provision of public services, since citizens have not used this means to present their complaints and suggestions, are unaware of their existence and, likewise, the way complaints and suggestions are handled and valued is weak and the grounds for complaint remain the same.