The Sierra Leone Postal Services Ltd (SALPOST), listed in the National Commission for Privatization ACT 2002 for divestiture will not be privatize. Mr. Mohamed Abu Sesay, Financial Analyst for the Banking sector of the NCP said no rational government would privatize its postal service. With the privatization process going on, Mr. Sesay said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has provided funding for the restructuring of SALPOST.
SALPOST lives in a fast changing world experiencing developments in communication technology. Today the world has become a big village with better and faster ways of communicating with each other across continents. Mobile phones and the internet have even influence old ways of communicating and made communication faster, less time consuming and without the need for a fix location on the part of the service user. These developments in Information Communication Technology (ICT) have seriously affected the operations of SALPOST, a public enterprise that has refused to grow mainly due to mismanagement. For the business community, such developments have aided trade and transfer of technology.
SALPOST exists in an environment with a state owned telecommunications company and four mobile phone companies. Most of these companies provide either telephone, and/or mobile phone and internet services for a five million population with less than 50% of them illiterate. There are other private internet service providers. Even in the postal business there are private companies providing at a price faster ways of sending and receiving mails. These as well present huge challenges for SALPOST for its present and future operations.
The name Kanji Daramy is synonymous to some of the current problems of the enterprise when he headed the corporation. The Peter Kamarah Commission of Inquiry proved it. But leaving this history to forge a way forward leaves room for positive thinking and reform process.
As the debate over public ownership and privatization is still inconclusive looking at the success story of public run enterprises in Malaysia, and the successes of the Reagan Thatcher Revolution-privatisation in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere, SALPOST should be restructured to provide better services to the public. E-mails have greatly replaced the snail mail and as an endorsement, even the BBC and other worldwide broadcasting houses no longer encourage regular mails in their programmes. But other documents could be sent via regular mail with or without the existence of e-mail services. For instance supporting documents for college application abroad are sent via regular mail.
To say postal services is not a viable business is to ask why DHL and REDCOAT are still in the postal business. SALPOST may not ask for the amount of money charged for service products like the private ventures but it should be in position to run cost recovery services.
Take a look at the SALPOST structure on Siaka Stevens Street in Central Freetown; it’s an insult to the other structures that surround it. It hasn’t seen for years the usual end of year maintenance that other buildings often experienced. Coming downwards Gloucester Street from Victoria Park will show the ugly state of the roof top of SALPOST.
If appearance determines content then SALPOST is in a bad shape and needs the serious intervention of NCP to make it a viable entity. The company used to run the SALPOST Bank but the bank has closed its banking services owing its clients above a billion leones.
For SALPOST to experience a face lift outwardly, it’s high time the NCP recommended processes that would turn it around to be an efficient service provider and if not profit making but not a huge burden on the tax payers money.
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