Endless Wait for Postal Industry Reform

The courier industry is an integral part of any economy, providing transportation of packages, supplies, bulk materials and documents among businesses and corporations in a country and beyond.

Courier businesses are small businesses and have a long history of positive influence in their communities.

There are several hundreds of these small businesses in Nigeria that make up the multi-billion naira courier industry which have the potential of handling N8 to N10 billion worth of jobs annually.

But despite the importance, the National Postal Policy and Nigeria Postal Service Bill, a set of all important document touted as transformative for the postal industry is embroiled in web of confusion more than 14 years after stakeholders began moves to reposition the industry.

Today the industry is weighed down by myriads of challenges; chief among is the skewed regulatory practices which are characterized by bureaucratic bottlenecks and red tape of the country’s public service.

Others include: the menace of illegal courier operators; a weak capital market; multiple taxes by all tiers of government; dumping of mails; dilapidating infrastructure; and many other sharp practices.

Stakeholders say that sanity can only be restored to the sector with the establishment of an independent regulatory authority; just the same way it is done in developed economies.

The situation where Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) is both a regulator and player is clearly not acceptable.

NIPOST operates courier and postal business and still regulates the industry through the Courier Regulatory Department (CRD).

The consensus is that CRD is not fair in its regulatory duties since the NIPOST EMS is competing with courier operators in the same courier business.

Because of this, Nigeria faces significant opportunity costs that arise from an inefficient postal sector including: loss of mails, poor public opinion of the postal industry, poor infrastructure and high operating costs, and operational inefficiency.

For all these reasons, there is the need for an independent regulatory body outside NIPOST, and CRD.

This can only come with the passage of the National Postal Policy and Nigeria Postal Service Bill.