In market dynamics as in real life situations, change is imperative. Change makes room for new opportunities for improvement in service delivery, for the development of new products, new processes, new structures and new ways of giving values to customers.
It has become a global trend that most governments have no business being in business. Instead, the movement all over the world is towards deregulation and privatization. In a liberalized economy, entrepreneurs would conduct due diligence, invest expertise, time and money, employ local people and pay taxes to the government. All that is required of the government is put an enabling law in place in accordance with international best practices that will make businesses to thrive.
The revolution in the telecommunications sector is a test case of what liberalization can bring to an economy. The Post Office and the Telecommunication Services used to be one organization before under the Post and Telecommunications (P&T) Department.
The department was later separated into Nitel and Nipost. Further attempts that were made to reform and liberalize the two sectors were blocked as a result of vested interests. However, the telecommunications industry was opened up by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in 2001 to allow private expertise and investments to come in. Prior to deregulation, the telecoms industry was a monopoly dominated by Nitel and telephone lines then were in the hands of few aristocrats who could afford them. Owning a telephone line in such an era became a status symbol. In 1999, only about 450,000 lines were available compared to about 54 million lines that are connected in 2008, just seven years after liberalizing the telecoms sector.
Drivers of reform for the postal and courier sector are optimistic that the same feat achieved in the telecoms sector could be replicated in the postal and courier. They criticize government’s overindulgence in the affairs of Nipost, the national carrier in the postal business and say that such has led the organization to a lot of technical, financial and operational problems that have prevented the outfit from providing its core services. Constraints faced by Nipost in its operations include bureaucracy, complacency, insolvency, technical inadequacy among others as described by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).
The current practice worldwide is that governments are finding creative ways of funding and managing their service delivery to their citizens. They divest their equity holdings in the so called government establishments and allow private people to come in form of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) initiatives.
The proposed Policy and Draft Act demand that Nipost changes its legal status to a limited liability company. It is expected that by this change the new Nipost will be able to compete in the sector and deliver dividends to its investors. Other privately owned courier companies will also operate in a level playing field as Nipost will seize to be a government investment.
