CARIBBEAN-INFORMATION: Postal Reform High on Governments Agenda

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bernard Babb

BRIDGETOWN, Sep 13 1996 (IPS) - The inefficiency of the region’s postal service is coming into sharp focus as governments embark on a programme of reform amid concerns of the relevance of this service in the face of technological advances.

With the advent of the Internet, Electronic Mail, the Facsimile machine and other almost immediate means of information transmission, the post office which once reigned supreme in that area is slowly declining in importance, say observers.

Why wait for two weeks for a letter to go by post to a business associate across the Caribbean when the same information can be transmitted within a matter of minutes? some ask.

Then there is the courier service which will get letters and packages to almost any destination within a day or two and many are willing to pay the extra cost rather than risk a document being “lost in the mail” or arriving weeks later at its intended destination.

While electronic mail and the facsimile machine are popular among the business sector, for ordinary Caribbean people who once depended on registered mail for money from overseas relatives, the many remittance services have taken over that role.

“Certainly, the post office has lost its popularity in this area. With money transfers being so easily done there is really no need. Well maybe there are people who depend on it for parcels….” says Paulette Thompson, an accounting clerk with the Bank of Jamaica.

And governments, which for the most part in the Cale for the operation of the post offices, are beginning to realise that this service must either shape up or be left behind.

The service must change its image as inefficient organisations where delays, reports of lost or stolen mail are the order of the day, say observers.

Jamaica, earlier this year embarked on a programme aimed at bringing some measure of profitability to the postal system. The measure saw the increase of up to 1,000 percent in postal rates, but the population remains dissatisfied with the service being given.

The government of Grenada this week announced plans to put the ownership of the post offices into private hands with the hope that this move will change the image of the service.

Officials at the World Bank say there are applications from 30 countries before that institution seeking technical and financial assistance for postal service reform.

This list, says Kumar Ranganathan, senior finance officer with the Bank, includes several Caribbean islands as well as countries from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

This new development has led to the Bank setting up what it calls a Trust Fund to assist developing countries in the postal sector reform programme.

Trinidad and Tobago is one of the first countries in the region to benefit from this project and that country is now in the process of drafting legislation which will see the postal service operating in a more efficient manner.

The Postal Reform Project in this twin-island state is expected to cost in the region of 10 million dollars.

“The modernisation programme for the service includes corporatisation of the Post Office to a limited liability company as well as handing over operations to a management contractor on an incentive basis,” says Ranganathan.

Like Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados is also moving to upgrade its postal service as part of an overall public sector reform programme.

Home Affairs Minister, David Simmons says government intends to transform the Barbados Postal Service into a self-sustaining and profit-making entity which is geared towards meeting the needs of its customers.

A major challenge facing the Caribbean in the reform process is to be able to reclaim market share in express mail delivery from several large North American-based companies operating in the region, says Simmons.

“It is my expectation that with appropriate marketing strategies, which will result from a modernised post, our postal services should be in a position to recapture a substantial part of the market,” he says.

At a recent conference on the reform of the service held in Barbados and which was attended by commonwealth postal administrators from more than 40 countries, the urgency of the situation was highlighted.

Coordinator of the conference, Barbados’ Deputy Postmaster General, Francine Leacock, says the conference was a success and delegates emerged with a new vision of the post office of the future.

“The role of the post office is vital to Caribbean economies but has been generally overlooked and neglected in the region. The post office has the greatest number of contacts with the public… and plays a major role as facilitator in the implementation of economic policy,” he says.

Ranganathan believes that despite the technological advancements which see mail being moved around the world within minutes there is still a place for the efficiently run post office.

Research has shown some growth in paper-mail communications in recent years of around five or six percent in countries in Western Europe and North America and also in emerging economies like Singapore and Malaysia, he says.