Compensation to be paid for lost or delayed mail in Malta

Maltapost has pledged to speed up the delivery of letters and compensate senders for lost or delayed mail in a series of improvements to its service that could go a long way to resolving the public’s complaints. The revisions the company will undertake are contained in a document on Quality of Service Requirements published by the Malta Communications Authority as required by the Postal Services Act.

The document pledges to set right most of the concerns aired in a customer perceptions survey carried out last November, which had indicated general dissatisfaction with the time taken to deliver mail and with Maltapost’s overall performance.

A compensation scheme for local ordinary mail will come into force in October.

For delayed or non-delivered items, Maltapost will pay compensation of 12 times the stamp value of an individual postal item, up to a maximum of Lm1,000. Delay is taken to mean an interval of four or more working days after the sender has mailed the article.

If the lost mail contains something of value, the market price will be paid up to a maximum of Lm17, subject to submission of proof.

Where outgoing foreign mail is concerned, Maltapost is prepared to pay about Lm16 for lost registered items and around Lm20 per parcel.

When the document was being drawn up, Maltapost had proposed the requirement of a “certificate of posting”, at an additional charge of 11c, as proof, but the MCA considered the fee as excessive and directed Maltapost to reduce it to no more than five cents per certificate.

Maltapost has recently implemented a tracking system that enables clients to monitor the progress towards delivery of registered mail, via the internet or the telephone. A similar system is planned for parcel post.

The company will try and meet a next-day delivery target of 89 per cent of all mail for the current financial year, 90 per cent for the financial year 2005/2006 and 92 per cent for the year ending 2007.

As from next January, Maltapost will extend the International Post Corporation UNEX measurement system to cover additional countries such as the US, Australia and Canada. It will therefore be in a better position to publish the performance for letters from the time of posting to when they are delivered for these non-EU destinations. Maltapost has also proposed to the MCA that inbound cross-border mail arriving at its office of exchange before 6 p.m. between Monday and Friday and 3 p.m. on Saturdays will be processed on the same day and delivered like ordinary mail. This proposal is still under consideration.