Country's postal service
Shamsul Huq Zahid | Wednesday, 28 May 2008
The Bangladesh Post Office (BPO), a public sector service-oriented entity, is financially broke.
The BPO has recently hit the media headline following its failure to pay the dues to overseas mail operators and carriers and consequent suspension of airlifting of mails and parcels by foreign airliners. The FE, however, was the first newspaper to publish a number of reports on the predicament of the BPO.
Only recently, the Singapore Airlines refused to carry BPO mails and parcels due to non-payment of Tk 36.7 million. The BPO is dependent on the airlines to maintain its postal links with 14 countries, including Singapore, Australia, South Korea and Hong Kong, where lots of Bangladeshis are either employed or receiving higher education.
Back in 2005, two other foreign airlines-the British Airways and the Thai Airways -- stopped carrying BPO mails and parcels for non-payment of arrear charges.
Desperate for funds, the BPO authorities, reportedly, sought bail out fund from the government last month. But the government, as usual, took time to take a decision on the BPO request.
Then came a threat from the most powerful global postal operator-the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The Union issued the threat that it would stop taking Bangladesh mails if the BPO fails to clear an arrear amounting to Tk 260 million (26 crore) by June next.
This time the threat worked. The government took decision expeditiously to allocate a fund of Tk 360 millions to the BPO to clear its dues to all international operators. The crisis facing the BPO, it seems, would soon be over.
However, one might feel tempted to raise, at least, a couple of questions relating to the BPO's financial crisis and the way the government has handled it.
Why did the BPO fail to clear dues to the foreign airliners or the UPU in time? Does it anyway help brighten the image of the country in the outside world when a foreign airliner or an international organisation stops providing services for non-payment of dues by a state-owned entity?
The government of Bangladesh has a good track record as far as its debt- servicing is concerned. But it needs to be more careful about payment to outsiders, no matter how small the amount is, for the sake of maintaining a good image of the country.
Why should an organisation like the BPO that once enjoyed monopoly in carrying mails and parcels be dependent on government doles? The answer lies in the gross mismatch between its income and expenditure. Last year it earned Tk 1.3 billion against its total expenditure of Tk. 2.56 billion. Its annual earning is not even enough to meet the salary and allowances-an estimated amount of Tk 1.81 billion-- of the officials and employees.
One private television channel carried a report some days back on the plight of the account holders of the BPO savings scheme in a 'mufassil' (outlying) area. The post office concerned, allegedly, was failing to refund the deposits made by the account holders under the scheme.
The BPO, according to a highly placed source, has deposits worth Tk. 15 billion under the postal savings scheme which once offered the highest rate of interests to the depositors.
The reasons behind the continuous slide in the earning of the BPO are not unknown. The people have virtually stopped availing themselves of the services of the postal department in this age of cell phone and internet. The cell phone which has penetrated deep into the rural Bangladesh has become an inexpensive and effective replacement for personal communication in written form.
Then again, the entry of a large number of efficient domestic courier services-some of those are providing prompt services for money transfer-and international courier services has caused a severe erosion in the earning of the postal department.
The people cannot be blamed for taking the services of private courier services for sending mails and parcels. The inefficiency and sloth of the country's postal department have been legendary. The competition it has been facing from private operators in the same business, unfortunately, has failed to create an urge in the officials and employees of the BPO to improve their performance and help reverse the decline of the oldest service organisation owned by the state. The reason for nonchalance on the part of the postal officials and employees could be that they 'being the government servants' are entitled to receive their salary and other benefits from the public exchequer at the end of the month. The deep financial problem facing the BPO will not anyway touch them.
But what is about the policymakers in the ministry of post and telecommunications? Should they go on watching the gradual demise of one of the oldest state entity without making any effort to salvage it?
[email protected]
The BPO has recently hit the media headline following its failure to pay the dues to overseas mail operators and carriers and consequent suspension of airlifting of mails and parcels by foreign airliners. The FE, however, was the first newspaper to publish a number of reports on the predicament of the BPO.
Only recently, the Singapore Airlines refused to carry BPO mails and parcels due to non-payment of Tk 36.7 million. The BPO is dependent on the airlines to maintain its postal links with 14 countries, including Singapore, Australia, South Korea and Hong Kong, where lots of Bangladeshis are either employed or receiving higher education.
Back in 2005, two other foreign airlines-the British Airways and the Thai Airways -- stopped carrying BPO mails and parcels for non-payment of arrear charges.
Desperate for funds, the BPO authorities, reportedly, sought bail out fund from the government last month. But the government, as usual, took time to take a decision on the BPO request.
Then came a threat from the most powerful global postal operator-the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The Union issued the threat that it would stop taking Bangladesh mails if the BPO fails to clear an arrear amounting to Tk 260 million (26 crore) by June next.
This time the threat worked. The government took decision expeditiously to allocate a fund of Tk 360 millions to the BPO to clear its dues to all international operators. The crisis facing the BPO, it seems, would soon be over.
However, one might feel tempted to raise, at least, a couple of questions relating to the BPO's financial crisis and the way the government has handled it.
Why did the BPO fail to clear dues to the foreign airliners or the UPU in time? Does it anyway help brighten the image of the country in the outside world when a foreign airliner or an international organisation stops providing services for non-payment of dues by a state-owned entity?
The government of Bangladesh has a good track record as far as its debt- servicing is concerned. But it needs to be more careful about payment to outsiders, no matter how small the amount is, for the sake of maintaining a good image of the country.
Why should an organisation like the BPO that once enjoyed monopoly in carrying mails and parcels be dependent on government doles? The answer lies in the gross mismatch between its income and expenditure. Last year it earned Tk 1.3 billion against its total expenditure of Tk. 2.56 billion. Its annual earning is not even enough to meet the salary and allowances-an estimated amount of Tk 1.81 billion-- of the officials and employees.
One private television channel carried a report some days back on the plight of the account holders of the BPO savings scheme in a 'mufassil' (outlying) area. The post office concerned, allegedly, was failing to refund the deposits made by the account holders under the scheme.
The BPO, according to a highly placed source, has deposits worth Tk. 15 billion under the postal savings scheme which once offered the highest rate of interests to the depositors.
The reasons behind the continuous slide in the earning of the BPO are not unknown. The people have virtually stopped availing themselves of the services of the postal department in this age of cell phone and internet. The cell phone which has penetrated deep into the rural Bangladesh has become an inexpensive and effective replacement for personal communication in written form.
Then again, the entry of a large number of efficient domestic courier services-some of those are providing prompt services for money transfer-and international courier services has caused a severe erosion in the earning of the postal department.
The people cannot be blamed for taking the services of private courier services for sending mails and parcels. The inefficiency and sloth of the country's postal department have been legendary. The competition it has been facing from private operators in the same business, unfortunately, has failed to create an urge in the officials and employees of the BPO to improve their performance and help reverse the decline of the oldest service organisation owned by the state. The reason for nonchalance on the part of the postal officials and employees could be that they 'being the government servants' are entitled to receive their salary and other benefits from the public exchequer at the end of the month. The deep financial problem facing the BPO will not anyway touch them.
But what is about the policymakers in the ministry of post and telecommunications? Should they go on watching the gradual demise of one of the oldest state entity without making any effort to salvage it?
[email protected]