Courier Operations will be Better with Postal Commission – Oladapo

Siyanbola Oladapo is the secretary general, Association of Nigeria Courier Operators (Anco) and managing director/ chief executive officer, Bowill Errands Courier.
Before, Oladapo established Bowill Errands in 2007, he worked for so many companies including Thompson Barradell Oil Service company, where he rose to general manager.
He has worked in the the banking industry, where he spent over a decade. In this interview with nkechi david – iwuchukwu, he spoke of Bowill Errands and other issues in the courier industry.

On Anco
Association of Nigeria Courier Operators (Anco), is an association open to individuals and Corporate bodies who engage in courier business, with the condition that they must be licensed by the CRD. The association, protects the interest of all licensed courier operators, maintains standard and practices in the Nigeria Courier Industries, enhance, facilitate and ensure professional standards, practices and procedures in Nigeria and review same as the need arises. The association also ensure that ethical practices are maintained in the industry, as we complement and assist in the activities and roles of the CRD (as particularly directed) towards sanitizing and ensuring the  application of professional ethics and standard practices in the Nigerian Courier Industry, ensure and encourage the provisions of good working environment for good courier delivery services and encourage synergy, merger and association of companies operation in the courier industry in the country. We will not start blowing our trumpet. I think we will leave it for the public to see what we have been able to achieve. For instance the incidence of dumping which you will not hear the way it was before. Again the CRD has been able to take us along in their training programmes and other matters affecting the industry. The department helped us to reach out to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and banks and other people that hitherto we didn’t have the opportunity of meeting.  Now with the Courier Consultative Forum (CCF) which is a forum for stakeholders in the courier business, we have been able to express the problems we are facing whether with registrars, companies or anyone and they have come to see us as practitioners and respect us better unlike when you go as an individual. Again, we have been able to invite some stakeholders to our meetings. In 2008, we were able to meet with National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in our effort to sort out issues concerning trafficking in hard drugs.  We have been able to let them see that our members will not do any unprofessional thing and even if any of our members have any problem, he can come to us and we have been able to assist our members very well.  Again, don’t forget that we now have a functional website that you can access from anywhere. With this website you will know about us and get information. We also have a well organized secretariat with staff that carry out activities on our behalf. For those of us that have problems with the registrar, that is, those that are into bulk mailing, we have been able to see the registrars to let them know why they should be treated like partners in progress. Now, the incidence of dumping and sharp practices has reduced considerably. The two bodies NIACA and Anco also met with the postmaster general in 2008 to discuss industry issues, so we have been working closely with regulators.
Teething Problems
Number one on the list is erratic power supply, bad road network, multiple charges by government agencies, security, which does not allow for 24 hours service and of course finance. Again, there is another problem of understanding why people had to register with the association. Thirdly, initially people didn’t believe in people regulating them to tell them to do things in a good way.  These were some the challenges we faced and after that we were able to overcome. People now have confidence in the association; more people are now joining the association. The CRD is supporting us so much .Again, other executive bodies have been able to see us as partners they can talk to against when there was no such body. Now they know there is a body recognized by the Federal Government and so these were what I considered as the teething problems but now things are better.
Postal Commission
I want to recall that when Lagos State government with the good intention of Raji Rasaki in trying to make things happen passed the coronal law that when somebody dies you won’t talk about it but other stakeholders kicked against it and the governor recalled it being a listening governor. At the national level, the process of legislation has to pass through various levels. Even with the postal bill, we made our input into the draft document when we saw the contents and discovered there were some aspects of it that we felt would be detrimental to our business. If the draft bill had been passed the way it was it would have affected our business which was not the intention of the government. I can assure you, from what we have seen on ground, the legislation will see the light of the day before the end of the year and when it does you will see that we are better off.
Government Effort to Help the Industry Grow
Government can do a lot to facilitate the growth of the courier industry in this country, but most importantly they should provide an enabling working environment to knock off all the teething problems which I mentioned earlier.
Local Government Harassment
We have been meeting with authorities concerned about this. Governor Fashola has brought a lot of finesse to administration in Lagos State and has tasked local government chairmen to ensure that in their various jurisdictions that things are done within the ambit of the law, as he leads by example. We see things getting better in that respect as we now see where to report. You can even visit the governor’s website and send anything to him and say this is where this is happening. You can be too sure he will listen to you. We also now have his commissioners’ phone numbers, local government chairmen and their phone numbers including those of Fashola’s aides for us to contact them any time and explain our problem. I think the way Lagos State government is going about it, things will get better this year. The problem with the local governments is that they all want to collect revenue but they shouldn’t do it the wrong way. What we are asking is for them to give us the list of what courier operators are expected to pay and we will look at it and advise our members accordingly. We are law abiding citizens. Discussions are still ongoing but I know we will get there. I am optimistic that things will get better this year as the forum we are trying to create will bring a better understanding between us and the local governments.   This is necessary to avoid delay in the movement of goods and services as our business has to do with speed.
Impact of IT Revolution
Positive!  It has reduced the time that we spend in doing things, reduced much paper work, boosted our revenue and assisted the industry in going beyond where we think we are going to.
Bowill Errands Courier
Bowill commenced operations in 2007. The Express courier service company, also offers inbound, outbound, haulage, pick up and domestic express cargo. One unique thing about the company is its defined goals. When I say defined goals, I mean that from the day the company commenced operations, we had set our targets and have been adding value to our services. In this industry, we all know the rules of the game and also know that there are some things we must not do no matter the situation. If within two years of operation we are successful, it is because we believe in what we have set out to do. We also beef up any department in the company that needs more hands even as we don’t play with training of personnel.
Training of Personnel
Training is very relevant in our system. Like I keep saying, there is no school for courier and the only thing we could do is that every body has to learn more as things move faster.  The things you did two years ago may now need new processes. Like a doctor who graduated few years ago and feels he is a medical doctor, he needs to update his knowledge regularly. Every day there are new sicknesses and even old ones are resisting medication, there is need for the medical workers to face these challenges squarely. The same thing applies to courier. We are trying to collaborate with the Courier Regulatory Department (CRD) of Nipost, on training. Training of course is one of the mandatory prerequisites an operator must meet before his license will be renewed. Initially some operators were skeptical about training but after being part of the exercise, they are better informed about the new trends in the industry .so we have been able to achieve much in terms of training especially the new entrants who do not know much about courier.