Homes without letter boxes causing headache for GPOC
Minister of Public Telecommunications Catherine Hughes addressing reporters at the Guyana Post Office Corporation Training Centre in Georgetown on the importance of mail boxes. Also included in the photo are: GPOC PRO Telesha Whyte (sitting on Minister’s left), the Postmaster General Karen Brown (right of the minister) and Reverend Raphael Massiah –GPOC Chairman (DPI Photo)
Minister of Public Telecommunications Catherine Hughes addressing reporters at the Guyana Post Office Corporation Training Centre in Georgetown on the importance of mail boxes. Also included in the photo are: GPOC PRO Telesha Whyte (sitting on Minister’s left), the Postmaster General Karen Brown (right of the minister) and Reverend Raphael Massiah –GPOC Chairman (DPI Photo)

…155,873 mail returned in 2017

THE Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) will soon launch an aggressive campaign to raise awareness about the importance of letter boxes as it work to cut the high number of returned mail on a yearly basis.

In 2017 alone, more than 155,873 mails were returned to GOPC, in many cases, due to the absence of letter boxes. GPOC Chairman, Reverend Raphael Massiah made the announcement on Monday, in the presence of Minister of Public Telecommunication Catherine Hughes, Postmaster General Karen Brown and GPOC Public Relations Officer Telesha Whyte, during a press conference at the Guyana Post Office Training Centre.

Massiah said as the country’s housing sector rapidly expands, it is important that home owners erect letter boxes to their premises to allow for easy and safe delivery of postal mail. He said while 65 post offices are strategically placed across the 10 Administrative Regions with the primary aim to help people, organisations and communities transfer their mails, money and information, there is a key element missing in many cases. “There is a little but significant piece that is missing preventing us from being effective and efficient as we can possibly be and that is the little box…If you travel the length and breadth of the country you will see evidence of brand new housing communities, beautiful houses, beautiful homes, where people live, raise their children, what is absent, we don’t find these boxes. So what that does, it has a negative impact on the delivery of mail, the effective delivery of mail right across the length and breadth of our nation,” the GPOC Chairman explained.

Absence of mail boxes, in many cases, prevents the delivery of important documents, he said.
“We are encouraging our citizens, we are encouraging all household owners, please add a letter box to your beautiful investment and that would guarantee the arrival of your mail, very important mail: local, overseas, and very many other things,” Reverend Massiah pleaded.

The Public Telecommunications Minister said the public sensitisation programme has become necessary due to the increasing amount of mail that returns to GPOC. “The campaign will begin very shortly with a message of safety and security of postal mail, and of course the convenience to residents,” she assured.

Due to the absence of mail boxes, she said, postal workers often have to visit premises more than once to ensure the delivery of the mail and, in some cases put their lives at risk just to ensure a mail is delivered.

Letter Box

“We don’t have to mention again the challenges of postal workers who are attacked by dogs because they know they have an important piece of mail and they venture into a yard or home, only to find that the dog is loose,” Minister Hughes pointed out.

The Public Telecommunications Minister anticipates that when the campaign is launched there will be a demand for mail boxes. “The campaign will begin very soon but before it does we have already started engaging all of our technical institutes, the GTI, the BTI, ETI in Essequibo, NATI in New Amsterdam, plus the Lenora, Mahaicony and Upper Corentyne and other technical institutes. Why have we engaged them? We have engaged them because we know, once we put this campaign in place, there is going to be a demand for more post boxes, and really, we are also using the opportunity to challenge our young creative minds to design and construct functional mail boxes, utilising any durable material they can come up with,” Minister Hughes explained.

Questioned whether, there was increase in the use of postal services in 2017, the officials, though not equipped with the information at time, explained that there has been a gradual reduction over the years, it has remain constant. However, the Postmaster General noted that bulk post mail has remained the greatest revenue earner for the Guyana Post Office Corporation followed by coastal money order and swift shipping services.

In 2017, bulk postage, which includes mail from commercial banks and utilities, raked in $468.7M, while agency fees total $106.8M. Inland Money Order Commission totaled $154.6M. Minister Hughes while acknowledging that income generated from postal services in Guyana has declined over the last five to 10 years, GOPC has been diversifying its operations to include other services such as the online swift shipping service.

 

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2 thoughts on “Homes without letter boxes causing headache for GPOC”

  1. I don’t see the whole problem. For years, we did not have a letter box. The mail was stuck on the gate. For people who didn’t have a fence the mail was dropped at the door.
    Since, it seems that many of the folks have dogs, I am going to assume they have a fence. Why not stick the mail on the fence.

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