Citizen ombudsman reminds incoming gov’t of duty to provide excellent service

Ombudsman of Puerto Rico Edwin García Feliciano

By The Star Staff

The incoming government administration must be based on excellent service to the people, said the Ombudsman of Puerto Rico, Edwin García Feliciano.

The island’s top citizen’s advocate was emphatic in pointing out that the main challenge of the new government is to satisfy the people’s hopes due to agency heads’ possible negligence in fulfilling the citizens’ service expectations.

García Feliciano said that no matter how good the intentions, programs, and infrastructure or capital investment projects are, the people have already learned to judge by what was not offered and what was not fulfilled.

“It is proper that all the projects that need to be done are carried out,” he said. “But let’s not forget everything else, which the citizens anxiously expect from their government.”

He said that at the end of the day, the head of the government is the only one responsible before the electorate, who later charges him for what was not done or should have been done.

To underscore his point, García Feliciano used the Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP) as an example. He said that an agency that does not have the flexibility to deal with daily situations, such as potholes in public roads, traffic light repairs, road cleaning, and countless other everyday situations, seems ineffective, even if it manages to pave 500 roads throughout the island. He pointed out that only some things can be delegated to the General Services Administration.

A similar situation, García Feliciano continued, occurs with the Department of Health. He specified that one cannot speak of health if one does not provide preventive care to citizens, who in some cases become patients with multiple diseases.

“If educational campaigns are not managed with a preventive approach, if the work plan is not discussed at the municipal level, if it [the Health Department] does not take an active role in providing excellent service to the patient, or if it does not become an ally of the citizens in their fight against the insurance companies in coordination with ASES [Health Insurance Administration], it is doomed to failure,” he said.

The citizen ombudsman said further that the Education Department is another agency that needs to take care of its obligations on a daily basis. He cited examples such as not suspending classes because of professional meetings, greater flexibility in recruiting teachers or suspending the maintenance of schools in July.

García Feliciano was specific in stating that people expect children with disabilities, such as those on the autism spectrum, to be attended to, and for teacher absences to be reduced.

“In short, the day-to-day does not make the Department of Education an institution with serious administrative deficiencies without results or articulation,” the former mayor of Camuy said.

He added that it is essential to eliminate the excess of bureaucracy and give agencies the flexibility that allows them to be responsive to the citizens’ demands.

“Not understanding it would be falling back into the same thing,” he said. “It is necessary to re-evaluate all the lines for which citizens and merchants are billed, and to have agency heads who respond to the needs of citizens.”

In this regard, García Feliciano emphasized that the government has to learn to return calls, answer texts and emails, and not stop serving citizens and, especially the growing population of senior citizens, in a personal way.