N200m debt to airlines cripples NIPOST operations

…As international mails, parcels litter Lagos airport

By KELECHI MGBOJI

 If you are expecting parcels and mails from abroad or hoped to deliver one through NIPOST in the past three months, you had better exercised caution because your mail or parcel may never get to target destination. 

Reason: International airlines contracted by NIPOST to render services as carriers of mails and parcels have decided to dump them. Now millions of parcels enroute abroad litter the International Mail Processing Centre at the Nigeria Aviation Handling Company (NAHCo) building, Lagos.

The Nigerian NewsDirect has it on good authority that parcels and mails routed through the Lufthansa Airlines, Air France, KLM, Egyptian Airline, and other international airlines have refused to continue rendering services to NIPOST after they had accumulated about N500 million debt in the last six months or more.

However, the spokesman of NIPOST, Mr. Taye Olaniyi, countered saying that the debt was only about N150million even as he also admitted that he had no exact figures of the amount involved, stressing that it has been a cumulative issue.

He said over the years there were no pressure in terms of payment but only in recent time that pressure is being exerted about payment insisting that the amount of money involved was not more than N150 million being owed to about 5 or 6 airlines.  
Our undercover visit to the international mails processing centre (IMPC) at NAHCo building revealed massive heaps of mails dumped at the centre following refusal by the airlines to continue rendering such services.

Our investigations into the operations of NIPOST revealed many questionable issues which call for urgent attention of the supervising Ministry of Communications Technology as some of the disgruntled staff of the federal government agency are very unhappy with the system yet could not volunteer any word for fear of victimization.

Information available to our correspondent showed that funds travel through long slow process before it finally get to the units and departments which they are meant for, a development that probably explains why the institution accumulated huge debt over several months period.

The workers are full of grudges over non-payment of several allowances ranging from IPPS, increment in salary and allowances after promotions, allowances for postmasters, and several others.

For instance, it was discovered that one year after NIPOST workers get promoted it takes one long year to effect government approved promotion and allowances, raising questions as to what happens to the money accruing to the promoted worker.

Despite the fact that Area Postal Managers receive about N2 million monthly, it was discovered that little funds of about N50, 000 monthly is given to District Managers to run their offices and districts hardly enough for effective operations.
This explains why most of NIPOST offices are dirty and unkempt, and are without dispatch vans since they cannot service them to move ordinary mails. It is only with the bulk mails departments that there seem to be a couple of dispatch vans.

There are strong suggestions that pay as you earn tax deductions from the staff salaries are not remitted to the concerned government tax authorities just as there seem to be duplication of pay slips to cover up issues regarding unpaid allowances.

When contacted, NIPOST spokesman, Taye Olaniyi explained that as far as postal service is concerned there is always room for airlines we are dealing with to send their invoice which takes about 3 to 6 months to be paid.

He said that based on the International Regulations of Universal Postal Union, every postal service has a way of embarking on delivery and after delivery has been made or not calculate what is to be paid to whosoever is concerned in which payments are made after some time.

According to him, in the postal industry there is a lot of politics, economy and culture which is why there is ripple effect with anything that happens in the postal industry, stressing that NIPOST is a victim of postal politics and terrorism stigma arising from the Boko Haram insurgency which has necessitated thorough scrutiny of all parcels into and out of the country.

“That is principally accounts for the delays in most of these mails going outside the country and not so much as to NIPOST is owing or not. An arrangement is being made now to have a domiciliary account by our own postal administration so that some of these airlines that carry our mails from Nigeria will have to be paid in naira and kobo instead of the foreign currency that we have to pay them with so that international economy will come into play and all the parties involved will benefit from it,” Olaniyi explained.

As to why workers are not paid salaries and allowances to reflect their new level after promotion, Olaniyi stated that the problem had since been corrected and that all those who had such problems had been paid or are going to be paid.

Efforts to get the management of Lufthansa and other airlines to comment on the matter proved abortive as they were said to have only ticketing offices in Nigeria whereas management offices are located at their home countries, leaving undisclosed public relation agents to manage their briefs.