The office of the Ombudsman wishes to let the people of the Republic of Vanuatu know that there are now processes to be adhered to, before and when lodging complaints with the Office.

The office encourages persons wishing to complain about a service they are not receiving from any Government Agency to take that up with the Government Agency first and complain to the Ombudsman Office later if nothing has been done to rectify or address the grievances of anyone who feels that certain services are not rendered to him or her by that particular Government Agency.

For anyone classified as a Leader pursuant to Article 67 of the Constitution and section 5 of the Leadership Code Act, the Office will receive such complaints for review before a final determination is made on whether or not the complaint warrants an investigation or not.

Ombudsman Bulu is encouraging his officers to also take a new approach when dealing with complaints before registering any complaint. Government agencies should be engaged through informal discussions to find out more information about a certain complaint and if there are areas that can be rectified to fit the standards being complained about and this approach will only be used when the office deals with maladministration complaints.

This different processes of handing complaints was initiated over the past 4 months and has contributed a lot in the reduction of cases being dealt with by the Office and also shorten the life of new complaints.

If you have a complaint and you wish to contact the Ombudsman Office, please feel free to contact the Office on 27200.