Political Intrigues Delay Postal Bill

Intrigue rather than administrative bottleneck is responsible for the setback in passage of the National Postal Policy and Nigeria Postal Service Bill, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
Nigeria Postal Service Bill is a document that will give legal backing to the operations of the post as a whole, while National Postal Policy will institute a regulatory framework for the postal sector by setting up an independent regulator for the industry.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the draft policy was brought out in 2005 and till now, spanners are at works on this all important policy.
Stakeholders believe that creating a competitive environment to make the postal sector viable should be uppermost. This can only be achieved through a workable regulatory paradigm that will provide efficient, transparent and accountable system of control for the postal market.
The bid to reform the postal sector started in 2004 with the engagement of Nethpost Consultancy of Netherlands to conduct feasibility analysis and provide restructuring options for Nipost and the postal sector. This came as a result of agitations by private courier operators at the second Nigeria Courier Summit in 2004 impressing on the federal government to give the industry an independent regulatory body even as they went ahead to demand that the Courier Regulatory Department (CRD) of Nipost having done so well should be transformed to become a commission that would regulate the postal sector.
The Courier Regulatory Department (CRD), an arm of the federal government owned Nipost has been regulating the industry for years now but stakeholders argue that it smacks of injustice for a department of Nipost, also a player in the industry to be regulated by its offspring among other competitors thereby stoking the fire for an independent regulatory umpire for the sector.
Just last month, it was announced by the National Privatization Council headed by the vice president that eight bills had been endorsed including the Postal Bill. The next stage would have been for the document to be sent to the Federal Executive Council through the minister of information and communications and then to the National assembly for passage into law. But this is still being awaited.