Secretary General of Pan African Postal Union (Papu) Younouss Djibrine
"ICT has long been perceived as a threat to us from the beginning but we see it as a facilitator to improved postal services, the Secretary General of Pan African Postal Union (Papu) Younouss Djibrine declared here on Monday.
Speaking at the 36th anniversary since the agency was established here, the official said many post offices have now digitalised many of their services, implying that the modern technologies have facilitated rather than constrained the sector.
He told stakeholders that although the volume of mails have decreased the world over with the coming of new and faster communication technologies, postal services would remain to play their role of linking people and their businesses for generations to come.
Papu, which is a specialised agency of the African Union (AU), was formed on January 18, 1980 in Arusha where its headquarters has been located ever since.
It is one of several regional and continental inter-governmental bodies based in Tanzania’s safari city.
Djibrine said contrary to fears that the digital age has come to decimate the mail business, the postal fraternity in Africa has been under transformation “in response to the ever changing customer tastes and evolving business environment”.
The areas mostly affected in the reform agenda, according to him, are operational, organisational and management with the objective of aligning them to technological innovations rather than declining business due to entry of digital age.
“The advent of the digital age, particularly the Internet, has fuelled the pressure, the pace and the need for change,” he said, adding that postal offices have taken advantage of the ICT platforms and innovations to respond to the needs and expectations of the market.
“Postal offices now are real business and modern communication centres providing easy access to e-mails, Internet surfing, electronic money transfers, binding mail, settlement of utility bills, ICT use training, e-government and the like,” the Papu boss pointed out.
The director general of the Tanzania Communication Regulation Authority (TCRA), Dr Ally Y. Simba said the postal sector has, besides its core activity of mail transfer, is now playing a key role in socio-economic development of the people through money transfers, micro credit transactions, pension payments and allied services.
He said although the sector in Tanzania is partly liberalised with the Tanzania Postal Corporation (TPC) remaining the public postal operator, TCRA is mandated to regulate it in order to protect consumers from monopoly abuse and investors from what he described as “opportunistic behaviours”.
Under the existing arrangements, the courier services in Tanzania are provided by the private sector.
Todate, TCRA has licensed six categories of private postal courier services into those offering international, East Africa, domestic, inter-city, intra-city services as well as inter-city transporting.
A representative of the Post Master General, Hudson Mwakitalu said TPC was committed to spearhead reforms of postal communication services in the ever-changing socio-economic environment.
"TPC's commitment is in line with priorities of the new fifth phase government of President John Pombe Magufuli to guarantee provision of services linked to common needs of the people,” said the official who is the corporation's assistant regional manager for Arusha and Manyara regions.
According to Papu, postal services in sub Saharan Africa have a low annual growth of 2.5 per cent though the continent has a large potential market.
On average, one post office in sub-Saharan Africa serves approximately 65,000 inhabitants, covering 1,590 kilometres.
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