Dr Florens Turuka

The government has promised to continue providing the necessary support for the country’s postal sector, so as to make it thrive in the current competitive business environment.

Permanent Secretary, in the Ministry of Communication, Science and Technology, Dr Florens Turuka gave the promise here yesterday when opening the Postal Revenue Protection (PRP) workshop.

The international meet brought together senior postal officials from across the globe as well as representatives from the Pan African Postal Union; Universal Postal Union, the UPU Postal Revenue Protection Working Group, and was facilitated by the Royal Mail, United States Postal Service and NEOPOST.

He said in recent years, the postal sector is overwhelmed with rapid advancement of information and communication technology (ICT), forcing the sector, to come up with special mechanisms to compete in the market.

The official said that it has become essential for the Postal Sector to respond effectively to the dictates of the evolution of ICT and changing needs of customers.

“This wind of change is not only creating opportunities but also posing challenges to our posts operations,” he said.

Citing examples, the PS said: “There are cyber crimes that are committed daily by tampering with mails streams, with the end result being the leakage of mail revenue.  Therefore, as a postal sector, we need to be abreast and innovative as those who are committing these sorts of crimes are always trying to devise new ways of beating our mailing systems.”

He also called on posts to put in place the right mix of technologies and processes to ensure that they collect all postage revenue owed to them.

Dr Turuka further challenged posts to join hands with other market players to collectively put in place sustainable mechanisms that can ensure protection of postage revenue.

According to the survey by the Universal Postal Union conducted in 2009, about 75% of Posts in the world confirmed that they were increasingly experiencing leakage of postage revenues. 

Thus, it is important to assess how the mailing streams are structured.  

Secretary General of the Pan African Postal Union, Rodah Masaviru said that the work was meant to accord participants the opportunity to address the challenges from different perspectives depending on levels of development of respective countries.

“In this regard, it would be critically important to find solutions to the challenges facing our countries in the push towards the development of postal services and its maximisation,” she stated.

Chairman of the UPU Postal Revenue Protection Working Group, Jean-Philippe Ducasse also stressed the need for experts in the postal sector to develop a realistic action plan that fully spells out where “we are and where we ought to be in terms of Postal Revenue Protection.”

“In doing so, we must ensure that there is a proper balance between the costs of postal revenue protection against the benefits accrued in terms of revenue recouped and reduced risk of leakage.”