Senate seeks urgent reorganization of Nigerian Postal Service

Senate, yesterday, mandated its Committee on Communication to urgently have interface with management of the Federal of Communication as well as the Nigerian Postal Service, NIPOST, to ascertain the challenges and their consequences against national economic development, with a view to reposition NIPOST for national growth.

The Senate equally tasked the committee to look into Nigeria’s membership of the Universal Postal Union, UPU, with a view to strengthen and maximize the benefits derived thereof.

It urged the committee to make appropriate and holistic recommendations that can help rejuvenate NIPOST to serve it’s dual role of service provider and regulator in “this era of information and communication technology”, after its findings.

The development followed a motion titled: “Urgent need to reorganise and reposition Nigerian Postal Service, NIPOST, for optimal performance, sponsored by Senator Ali Wakili, APC, Bauchi South. Senator Wakili, in his motion, noted that NIPOST was established as a national Postal service operator, which he said, had over the years, developed critical physical and material assets of billion naira in value and has true most pervasive network of physical outlets in the country.

The senator also noted that with over 3,000 recognized outlets spread across the country, NIPOST has the greatest potential of becoming a player to be reckoned with in both the real and social sector of the economy.

He said he was amazed that despite its national spread, strong asset base and regulatory powers, NIPOST has been burdened with paucity of funds, inadequate technical manpower, management challenges, demotivated staff, deficiency in modern skills and knowledge capital, resulting in the deterioration of its operations, dilapidation of its physical assets and under-utilization of capacity.

Senator Wakili insisted that due to absence of any clear vision or defining goals, strategies and drive, NIPOST had often been perceived by successive federal administrations in the last two decades and half as a drain on the budget of the government, as an agency that has irredeemably lost its relevance.

He said he was aware that in spite of the multiple challenges characterized with inadequate organizational structure, colossal revenue loss due to operational inefficiency, non-performance of its operator and service provider role coupled with poor implementation of revenue generating mandate, NIPOST can still be revamped to take advantage of modern postal technologies developed by the Universal Postal Union, UPU.

Source - NAN