Post boxes are in high demand – Ghana Post

By: Fred Yaw Sarpong

The Daily Express has gathered that contrary to the general perception that the advent of modern instantaneous means of communication has killed the post office business, the post office letter boxes are still in demand, officials have stated.

Mr. Ekow Paintsil, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ghana Post told this paper that their post boxes are in high demand because a lot of individuals and companies in the country have applied to own one for themselves. He added that the number of requests is increasing by the day particularly in areas like Accra and the major cities around the country.

He noted that although the volume of parcels has reduced drastically over the last few years, the demand for the boxes is rising. “The world over volume of parcels has reduced, and it is not Ghana alone experiencing this challenge,” he added.   

Mr. Paintsil said the management of the company is putting a lot of measures in place to improve the service delivery of the company.  “We are improving on our operations in order to add some additional services,” he said.

The company recently introduced services like domestic money transfer which included “MoneyGram” and “Western Union” with low service charges in addition to internet services, improvements to the Expedited Mail Service (EMS), parcels and letters delivery to clients.

Daily Express has also learnt that the company had established partnership with Senior High Schools in the country to deliver students’ terminal reports and bills to their parents and guardians as well as deliver parcels, statements of accounts to some banks’ customers and hardware of some banks and institutions in view of its wide network.

It also has a partnership with the Military, Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Police Service and the Immigration Service for the sale of the enlistment forms of such institutions to the public. The paper gathered further that this partnership had been successful and beneficial to the postal service.

Meanwhile, a common feature at most of the post offices in the country is the dirty, obsolete and rusted nature of a significant number of letter boxes many of which are begging for serious facelifts. The situation is quite notable within the capital, Accra and the other parts of the country. However, a few others are advertising the availability of new letter boxes for sale.

At the Mallam Post office, some of the boxes which are empty, have remained open for years, suffering what could be described as neglect from the authorities.

At the General Post Office in Accra, the Daily Express found a number of the boxes open and we are informed some of them have not been in use for decades. The Mamprobi post office also has a banner raised in front of it with the inscription “reading boxes are available here.”

The Ghana Post Company is State-owned with the government holding 100% shares and operated by the Ministry of Communications. It aims to provide efficient and reliable mail delivery service to individual customers, companies and the general public .

The postal service started operations as the post and telecommunication (P&T) Department. It became a corporation with the promulgation of NRC Decree 311 of January 1974 and has subsequently gone through various changes as a result of the promulgation of Acts 505, August 1993 and Act 461, July 1993

The idea of separation was bought by the Ghana government and was consequently approved by parliament. The government, however, accepted as part of the World Bank Second Telecommunication Project (STP) to separate the Post from Telecom and to restructure both entities with the view to: “Stimulating foreign investment in both; expanding and improving their networks to provide commercial and social service; improving their managerial capacities to ensure effective and efficient operations and maintenance of their facilities and services”.

The Ghana Postal Services Corporation was consequently established as a separate entity by Act 505 of parliament on August 31, 1995. Towards the eventual separation of the two entities, all assets were also shared.