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The Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) will be unbundled before end of December 2021 into several independent companies including a courier services company and a microfinance bank.
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, revealed this week in Abuja while unveiling the NIPOST N50 revenue stamp.
He said plans had reached advanced stage to unbundle the moribund company and make it virile again. According to him, government will soon make public policies at transforming NIPOST into functional entities.
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His words: “Soon we will be unbundling other parts of NIPOST such as Property and Development Company, Transportation and Logistics Company, NIPOST Microfinance Bank, among others. We will achieve this by leveraging on all our infrastructures around the country,” Pantami said.
The Nigerian Senate in June 2021 passed the Nigerian Postal Service (Repeal and Reenactment) Bill, 2021 which unbundles the agency into several independent companies and also creates a commission to regulate all postal activities including those of NIPOST.
Pantami assured that government remained focused on transforming NIPOST’s operations.
“We have many policies of transforming NIPOST in the pipeline and part of it will unbundle NIPOST.
“We have a plan with a property and development company. The company will bring together all the properties of NIPOST, develop them, and make sure that the government generates revenue from them.All generated revenue will go into developing sectors like health, education, agriculture, security, and other social developments.”
Significance of revenue stamp
“The unveiling of the N50 revenue stamp is the beginning of the transformation of NIPOST. We have recorded modest achievement in NIPOST that will increase its revenue and raise monies for other sectors of the Nigerian economy,” noted Pantami on the significance of the launch of the revenue stamp.
Post Master General (PMG) of Nigerian Postal Services (NIPOST), Dr. Ismail Adewusi, had earlier remarked on the rapid technology changes impacting on the operations. Of NIPOST and how the postal ahency was responding.
He said: “This disruptive technology has intensified our processes of diversifying our products and services to meeting the aspirations of our teeming customers and playing active role in the digital economy of the country.
Also speaking, the Chairman, Board of NIPOST, Maimuna Abubakar, said the signing into Law of the Amended Finance Act, 2020 by President Muhammadu Buhari will help put NIPOST on a sound financial footing.
Her words: “NIPOST is back to its legal position of administration of Stamps: as the exclusive producer and custodian of stamps in Nigeria. There is no need overstating the obvious which is that NIPOST stamps have been unquestionably used since time immemorial as the only instrument for denoting duty. Today’s event is a testament that NIPOST is finally free from all forms of constraints (legal and fictional) to execute its mandate. But the truth is that we couldn’t have achieved this alone.”
