Ghana Post Limited last Monday joined the world postal community to celebrate World Post Day with a pledge to be more innovative, profitable and start paying dividends to the government by 2020.
The acting Managing Director of the company, Mr James Y. Kwofie, said the company was embarking on reforms and ventures, leveraging on electronic commerce (e-commerce) to ensure that it tripled its profits in the next three years.
“We have embarked on a strategy that will allow us to turn around the post. We are going to focus on e-commerce which is growing all over the world at double digit rates.”
“We are going to digitise, partner the government to provide e-service centres and be the main supplier of government forms to the public as well as supporting schools administrations with the collection of school fees and application forms,” he said at the event.
World Post Day
Created at the 1969 Universal Postal Congress in Tokyo, Japan, the World Post Day is celebrated on October 9 annually as a means of marking the creation of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874.
Today, however, it is celebrated to raise awareness of the post’s role in the everyday lives of people and business, as well as its contribution to global social and economic development.
As part of the celebrations in Ghana, the company inaugurated its refurbished customer service centre, reception and a preventive healthcare unit.
Innovations
With Ghana Post facing a rather stiff competition from the Internet as its stamp sales for letter writers dwindle as well as courier services taking part of its market share in parcels, Mr Kwofie said the company had diversified its portfolio to include engaging a few banks that could operate in some of its branches to provide financial services to rural dwellers.
That aside, he said, the company had introduced a new product called EMS Merchandise which allowed it to deliver items anywhere in the world within three days.
With the country’s digital address system expected to be launched next week, he said the company would manage the national digital address register.
UPU
In a speech read on his behalf, the Director General of UPU, Mr Bishar A. Hussein, pointed to the increasing influence of the Internet, digital and mobile technology, which he said was turning the postal world upside down.
“Internet pervasiveness is growing year-on-year, transforming the ways in which citizens interact, communicate and do business. Customers in all industries are becoming ever more demanding in this age of digital and mobile technology. We want things done here and right now and we want choice and control,” he said.
In the same vein, he said, e-commerce and light logistics were growing at double digit rates in most regions, after years of sluggish growth, and added that “post can only mitigate risks and seize opportunities if they engage in reforms, embrace digitalisation, redefine their value proposition and develop new products and services”.
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