Dear Editor,
I wonder if you or your readers could throw some light on why mail to and from Guyana is taking so long to arrive. There was a time when you could count on surface mail taking just over two weeks and airmail would take just over a week and on occasions four or five days.
I sent five booklets to five different addresses in Guyana by airmail in the first week of October and yet two of them failed to arrive before December. At the time, I blamed the delay on the amount of Christmas mail.
On January 26, 2009, I again posted five booklets to addresses in Guyana. They were sent by airmail and yet twenty-four days later not one has arrived. I have asked Royal Mail to investigate the matter from this end but I would really like to know why the postal service in Guyana is not providing the excellent service it used to give.
Yours faithfully,
D Howells
Editor’s note
We are sending a copy of this letter to the Postmaster General, Ms Mayglen Adams, for any comments she might wish to make.
I posted a mail to Guyana since October 15, 2008. It still hasn’t arrived. Guess it’s on a trip around the world or somewhere in Ghana or Paraguay or its contents may be adorning some mail worker’s home somewhere…
I am in 100 percent agreement with Mr Howells letter.
Like Mr Howells, I do a good deal of posting by air mail service to Guyana and whereas if I had sent the item to Florida, USA (6 days); similar items posted to Guyana might take SIX WEEKS!
Like Mr Howells, I do use Royal Mail however, it cannot be the British element in the system which is at fault because UK mail to the US is generally faultless as in the example I have quoted above.
As Mr Howells remarked, this Guyanese ineffeciency was not always so. It seems there has been a slow-down of the mail stream once it arrives in Guyanese territory and this is quite an impediment in this day and age.
Thank you SN for taking up this matter with Postmaster General, Ms Mayglen Adams.
I am sure that many in the Diaspora would be interested in Ms Adams’ comments, if any is forthcoming.
Many times I sent birthday and Christmas cards,my relatives never get them,what I suspected is the postal workers in Guyana is opening up the envelopes to look for money and when they don’t find any they discard the mail.Once i run a test of the system,i told my cousin i would put five dollars inside a card and post it for him,he never get it unto this day.
….how u name “rdman” ,, an yuh en know wah bin happenin since urli 70s ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
i naley fall aff de chair laffin at u an yuh tes ! damn i stll laffin
iz hoo gih yuh dah name breds ??? if dem calin u “rdman” ! i en want fuh know wah duz happen to dem …..
RDMAN, i totally agree with you because of the same thing, i stop mailing cards or anything with pictures. I sent 3 cards last year and some very important documents and they did not arrived. it is very sad to say the least.
RDMAN== I have done exactly that couple times before. I placed small bills in between my letters and mail it in the regular small envelopes, and my friend has recieve it. Hopefully, nothing like this will ever happen to me, but I guess it depends on who is inspecting the mails and whether they are good enough to let it pass through.
Two things. Outgoing mails from Guyana, must be checked for illegal drugs. Incoming mails are either stolen or opened by the thiefing, postal employees, in search of booty. Plain and simple. Stop being so bloody cheap and use UPS. Her Majesty’s Royal Mail, has more important things to do.
diamond dog it’s irresponsible of you to tell the people to use ups, do you think everybody has the resource to send packages with ups, it’s very expensive, i used to work for a company that ship stuff and to send a mail express to guyana it takes 3 to 5 business days, but when it reach to guyana that’s where the delay occurs.
UPS? A relative of mine used one of those ‘light speed’ services expecting his mail to reach in 2 days. It took over 1 week!
You have to right to insult people and call them cheap. The post is a public service and charges a fee for those services. It ought to deliver.
Sol, yuh got to pardon DD. De licks he get when he bin lil neva teach he lil respect…
Micheal Tannassee,i wish if you could a fall of the chair an buss yuh big mouth an laff all the way to the hospital,we gat fuh carry yuh a mad house,or give yuh the name laff till yuh belly bus,me gat fuh tell Mahadeo Shivraj fuh check yuh out,yuh might be the best comic strip pon he show.
… i feel since i had to correct the postal system here in the US relative to mails taking forever to get to GY ,, it may just be the same in the UK ! ignorance of GEOGRAPHY !…. which is the primary requirement that should be adherred to in any postal system on the planet !lacking this essential knowledge by the “sorters” ,, is the ultimate cause for the delay of mails ,, form point A to B !….
in the late 90s early 2k i had a fight with the USPS ,, which is how i came to know that the lack of knowledge in GEOGRAPHY was the reason why,, when i mailed stuff from the east coast of the US for GY ,, it is then sent to california ,, then to south africa ,,then to GHANA !!!!
and then they in GHANA ,, will accumulate for quantity to make it worth their effort to “bag” it on to GY ! so while it’s sitting ,, in GHANA ,, anything imaginable under this sun is possible to happen to ur mail/package in GHANA ! it was not until i told the woman who is responsible ,, that GY is in south america ,, and GHANA is in africa ,, and that there is daily flights from NY to GY ! and that mail bags for GY should not be sent to T’dad ! T’dad ,, had a habit of having our mails sit at piarco ,, and when they feel like loading it to GY they do ! de same ting de bajan dem used to do ,, any mails to GY that come from europe to GY ,, and land in de bajan country ,, wen yuh get um is dah !….
i feel that all on the planet in the postal institution ,, must be versed in GEOGRAPHY to apply for that job be it local or global !….
“I have asked Royal Mail to investigate the matter from this end but I would really like to know why the postal service in Guyana is not providing the excellent service it used to give.”
What is there for the GPOC to answer here SN? You should have told the writer that he/she should await the response in the UK.
A booklet posted on a certain date, somewhere; has to be collected by the UK PO, processed there; put in a mail mail bag and given to an Airline Office, processed there; handed over to another airline, processed there;(we have no direct flights)the mail bag eventually arriving at Timehri, processed there; handed over to the GPOC Manager,processed there and conveyed to Georgetown. That bag is then opened (with CANU??)at the GPO and the mail processed and sorted, sent to the local Post Office, where it is sorted and thereafter the local Postman delivers to the addressee’s home/office.
Obviously the GPOC cannot answer,and this reader is aware of the shipping and airline connections that were there in the time referred to by the writer in the first paragraph, which do not now exist. GPOC has no control here..remember a writer from Canada raised similar concerns about being able to travel back home. This is a fallout also.
LACamacho
Seems odd to me that only now the matter of slow mail to and from Guyana is raised. As far as I know it has always been slow and that is why I no longer send mail to Guyana. The expensive overseas call is what I use, plus when friends and associates are travelling down there, I send the usual gifts.
Forget the mail:
1. it is too slow
2. it costs too much
I have heard about mail theft in G/T, but that has been there since my short stint at the GPO many years ago. In those days all outgoing and incoming air mail was recorded, so inside stealing was not possible. Mail theft was generally at the delivery point but difficuly to trace.
It is my understanding that currently all outgoing mail is scanned for drugs. That in itself takes time.
The extent to which drugs have been discovered has not been made public and that in itself should point the PMG to a speedier process of sample checking.
Just bear with the system. Better might eventually come.
Question.
Anyone ever tried posting packages through the post office, only to find out that some of the contents were never received by the addressee?
I posted some invitations and envelopes for my sister’s wedding, only to find out that she never received the envelopes…Are things that bad in Guyana that they resort to stealing your stuff?
As regards to this article, even express mail takes a while (3 weeks) to arrive in Guyana.
I too have received xmas mail posted 2nd and 3rd Dec on Jan.19th and Feb i2th.These mails were coming from london,but mail from right here in Guyana is taking the same time.
My Electricity bill was not delivered to my address and when i enquired a month later it came with these words on the back of the envelope…Address Removed!!!!
I fully agree that the mail system in Guyana is so bad one has to be crazy to use it, and at cristmas time plum loco. It is often said that a government that cannot deliver the mail should not be given that responsibilty to govern. A Government should be doing the things that its people cannot do for it self, like, security,mail,justice and many more.