Public demands better postal service
Better service from staff and more postal outlets are some of the requests customers made at the fifth and final of public consultations on the draft Postal Sector Policy (PSP) held Friday at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Port-of-Spain.
One man, Joe Berment Mc Dowell, spoke about the challenges to obtain postal services in the rural community where he grew up.
While he commended the current postal services for improving some of its services he expressed his concern about receiving damaged packages and reported that some items were even missing.
He also had concerns about the verification of items and adequate measures for security, suggesting that personnel hired by the service ought to be of good character and integrity.
On the question of having to leave the country-side to come into town to pay bills and conduct other banking transactions, he suggested that the post office bank of the past should be brought back. Customers also reported that the Government’s overseas express post was not as good as those of the private operators. One of the two postal consultants hired by the Government to come up with the policy, Herbert Niles, of Barbados, promised to take all suggestions into consideration when dealing with the final draft.
Niles has been in the postal business since 1979 and recently retired from his position with the Universal Postal Union, the United Nations agency responsible for coordinating and regulating postal services, as regional adviser for the Caribbean.
The other postal consultant, Raymond Philpott, of New Zealand, gave a detailed overview of the draft. He said the objective of a PSP is to establish a framework and the strategies that would support the continuing development of the sector, while meeting Government’s universal service obligation.
Minister of Public Utilities and the Environment Pennelope Beckles stated that the Government’s vision is to attain world class quality of service standards in letter mail, parcels, local courier and international express services.
The goal is to sustain and further enhance postal services which satisfy developing business and individual customer’s needs, at affordable prices, and to create a postal service that is able to succeed in increasingly demanding national and international markets.
