JEDDAH: The Jeddah municipality will deploy undercover inspectors in an effort to improve the quality of services and performance of its employees, according to a city official who spoke to Arab News yesterday.
The plan, called Hidden Explorer, involves frequent visits by undercover inspectors to evaluate behavior of employees at the municipality’s headquarters in downtown Jeddah, as well as in its branches and field offices across the city, said Samir Hussien, the head of the municipality’s Human Resources Department.
Hussien said the Hidden Explorer program would deploy undercover inspectors who will pose as citizens and approach municipal employees for services. The inspector will then prepare an evaluation of the municipal employee’s performance and behavior.
The program will also involve surveying citizens about their level of satisfaction in their interactions with municipal employees.
The program will periodically reward those municipal employees who receive high marks with recognition and financial incentives to continue to be model employees.
“This new system will hopefully elevate the municipality’s customer services to the highest levels,” Hussien said.
A source in the municipality told the Arab News on condition of anonymity that many of the problems are related to bribery, which is exacerbated by the relatively low salaries of the employees that interact with the public. “I hope that the new system will end this phenomenon,” he said.
