NIPOST Handles 19.69m Mail Items In Six Months

The Postmaster-General,
Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), Alhaji Ibrahim Baba, said that the service had handled 19.69 million mail items in the first six months of 2013.
Baba, who made this known at this year’s 2013 World Post Day celebration tagged “ The post delivering for people and business daily”, attributed the low figure to improper addressing and security challenges.
He said that street naming also made it difficult for NIPOST to deliver mail items within the set delivery targets.
Baba was represented at the occasion by the Deputy Postmaster General and Head of Counters, Mr Yashim Bitiyong.
He said that the service had lost more than 10 per cent of its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) due to security challenges in the North-East areas.
Baba said that in 2012, the service handled 45.38 million mail items, out of which 10.34 million mail items were received from abroad and delivered in the country, while 2.40 million items were dispatched abroad from Nigeria.
“Improvement in our mail collection and distribution system led to increase in the volume of mail traffic between 2002 and 2010, however the security challenges which the country has been facing in the past three years have resulted in a sharp drop in volume.
“Between January and June 2013, NIPOST handled 19.69 million mail items out of which 5.43 million were received from abroad while 1.60 billion were dispatched abroad.
“A total of 12.65 billion mail items were posted and delivered in Nigeria during the period and letters posted and delivered in the country amounted to 32.63 million,’’ Baba said.
He said that the establishment of a well articulated addressing system for Nigeria was predicted on the importance and role it plays in national development beyond the primary objective of mail delivery.
Baba said that national addressing system “is a national infrastructure that can be used to address issues such as poverty alleviation, national security, improvement of quality of life and identification of citizens, among others”.
He said that installation of Close Circuit Television (CCTV) bomb/metal detectors in major post offices coupled with NIPOST’s collaboration with Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) of Britain, EFCC and other related agencies had contributed in reducing crime perpetrated through postal outlets.
Baba added that in 2012, as a result of physical inspection of documents and postal packets transmitted through NIPOST, more than 45.57 million scam letters containing suspected counterfeit financial instrument and other prohibited items were intercepted.
“The total monetary value recovered from interception exercise was N13.74 billion as against N9.27 billion in 2011.
“It is worthy to note that the use of NIPOST as a conduit for the transmission of drug, arms and ammunition have become a thing of the past,” he said.
Baba said that in August 2013 the Federal Government released the sum of N1.59 billion for the payment of pension arrears to 5,206 NIPOST retirees.