Reactivating the national postal service

Such services may appear incongruous when placed side by side with the phenomenal expansion in technology and improved access to the information highway through the Smartphone and internet, even in rural areas that have hitherto been ICT wastelands. But it is a step forward that would undo the negligent policy of the past that the […]

Such services may appear incongruous when placed side by side with the phenomenal expansion in technology and improved access to the information highway through the Smartphone and internet, even in rural areas that have hitherto been ICT wastelands. But it is a step forward that would undo the negligent policy of the past that the government recently decided to resuscitate the dormant but once vibrant Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST).  The government has signed contractual partnership by which the Bangladeshi-based Infrastructure Investment Facilitation Company (IIFC) would provide advisory services to the financial inclusion projects of NIPOST.
Central to the project is the aim to reduce the number of financially-excluded Nigerians in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) financial inclusion plan under the ongoing revival and transformation of the NIPOST proposed by the Ministry of Communications Technology.
The NIPOST-CBN financial inclusion project is described as multi-agency initiative involving the communication technology ministry and CBN, with NIPOST being the project’s owners, and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), and the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) department of the Federal Ministry of Finance as stakeholders.
Postmaster General, Malam Mori Baba, explained that the objective of the project was to utilize the network of the post offices across Nigeria to create and improve citizens’ access to financial services. He said the signing of the contract came at a critical time for NIPOST, because of declining revenue from traditional mail operations occasioned by advancement in digital communications technology, amidst an increasingly competitive and harsh business environment.
The Minister of Communication Technology, Dr Omobola Johnson, noted that the transaction adviser was selected after a rigorous and transparent procurement process that saw a number of international and domestic consortia expressing interest in the project.
She said that the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) would give the financial adviser authority to manage the second phase of the financial inclusion project, designed to activate and modernize all the post offices around the country and all the postal agencies to become regional financial hubs for ensuring the inclusion of those that currently do not participate in banking activities, especially in rural areas.
The project will actually provide new role for the hundreds of abandoned but strategically located NIPOST buildings that dot practically every major city and town in Nigeria, drawing from the rich experience of Bangladesh as a microcredit success story.
But it would be useful also to be mindful of the pitfalls of the past, when many microfinance initiatives were tried with little success, such as Peoples Banks and Community Banks, among others.
The post office used to be an active and easily recognisable place of social significance in the community, where one could go to send or receive letters, buy books and postage stamps and provided the ambience of a truly national institution, connecting Nigerians with themselves, and between them and the rest of the world.
 It is the indolence that civil service work is replete with and which permeates every public institution that blunted innovativeness in the management of postal services in Nigeria, limiting the ability to consider measures to meet the challenges of new technologies.
 There is a huge opportunity for NIPOST to exploit the small, medium and heavy parcels delivery services and remain competitive. Because the infrastructure exists, the government can classify certain mails for despatched exclusively through NIPOST without breaching the free-enterprise rules.  Or the government may require that all government-related paper mails must be done through NIPOST, assuring the agency of revenue and relevance.
Properly implemented, this project could bring back the thriving economic activities of the post office, having them one more to make positive impact in the community each one is located.