Chairman of the Guyana Post Office Co-operation Juan Edghill called for “an overhauling” of the postal system in the Caribbean and for it to be more people oriented in his keynote address at the opening of the 13th annual Caribbean Postal Union Conference on Monday.
In the conference room of the Grand Coastal Hotel, Edghill told representatives of the 15 countries participating in the conference that the “postal sector is one that is under tremendous stress” and its survival required governments “to develop the political will to make tough political decisions not only to ensure [its survival] …but its viability and profitability.”
He added that there was a need as well for the establishment of new and strengthening of existing partnerships. “We have to move beyond regionalism. We have to face the reality of globalisation. We have to be able to position ourselves…we have to establish ourselves as a common group,” Edghill said in relation to standing up in the face of globalisation.
He further told the gathering that as they use the week long conference to develop a strategic plan it “must be a sign post and not monuments. In this overhauling, we gotta work our programmes. The Caribbean Postal sector needs an overhauling. We have to become modern, we have to become efficient, we have to become profitable,” he stressed.
Key to this overhauling is creating a postal service that is people oriented. “We have to start focusing on the people. We must engage people to serve people.” Edghill told the gathering that “a high level of service is expected” by the people “because the stamps and letters and parcels are not what they are expecting at the community level they are expecting the delivery of a high level of service that the government is using the post to get to the people.”
The postal service, Edghill pointed out is the oldest communication business still in existence and a different approach has to be taken to service provided. He called for the postal service to be more relevant and encouraged the gathering to embrace competition. “Yes we have competitors but competitors are essential partners. They exist to make us do what we do better,” said Edghill.
Meanwhile, Secretary-General of the Caribbean Postal Union Michael Gentle agreed that the post in the Caribbean is under threat and called for a re-invention of the postal service.
Gentle said the charge to his colleagues would be to “change how we do business and we need to look very, very critically at what we are doing”. He pointed out that the postal service in the Caribbean has not changed over the years and “we have to have more nimble organisations that respond more rapidly to the changes in consumer demands.
“If this conference produces anything I hope it would be a consciousness among the players… and to ensure that we are a catalyst for change because one thing is for sure we can’t continue to do business as usual because it is what we have been doing for years and years that have brought us to this place where we are unprofitable; our service standard is much lower than it should be so we have to reinvent ourselves and to transform the post,” Gentle told this newspaper after the opening was concluded.
Special remarks were made by Loretta Charlemagne on behalf of the Director General of the Universal Postal Union (UPU). She said the conference provided a forum for strategic discussions on the postal sector while bringing into consideration, among other things, the Regional Development Plan for the Caribbean (2009-2012) recognised by the 24th UPU congress as a fundamental tool for implementing the objectives of the Nairobi Postal Strategy on the basis of the three pillars for the postal sector.
