Mohammed Shosanya
The Senate on Tuesday,mulled privatisation of the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST).
The Joint Committee of the Upper Chamber on the Medium Term Expenditure and Fiscal Strategy Paper during an MTEF-FSP joint session threatened to recommend legislation to fully privatise the NIPOST for optimal performances.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance who also chaired the MTEF-FSP joint panel, Senator Sani Musa, disclosed this when the Postmaster General of the Federation, Tola Odeyemi appeared before the joint panel to defend its 2024 budget proposal.
Odeyemi’s demand for an increase of the agency’s personnel cost from N13 billion to N18 billion to cater for its 16, 000 workers irked the lawmakers who wondered why the NIPOST which presence cannot be felt anywhere in the country could increase its personnel cost.
Odeyemi’s explanation that the increment was as a result of the recent hike in personnel cost by the Federal Government to federal workers did not change the minds of the Chairman.
Senator Ireti Kingibe, a member of the joint panel, attempted to defend the continued existence of NIPOST as a partially funded agency of the federal government claiming that every nation deserves their own vibrant postal agency.
“NIPOST should not be scrapped but should be turned to a revenue generating agency.
“The only thing is that the agency was stuck in the 19th Century analogue operation instead of migrating to digital service for efficient services.
There is nothing stopping NIPOST to digitalise their offices across the country to offer electronic services for Nigerians, deliver government services at all local government areas and even engage in financial services,” she said.
Senator Osita Izunaso disagreed with her,and argued that the NIPOST as it is currently structured, should not be encouraged if the country was interested in generating revenues to fund its annual budgets.
Ruling on the matter, the Chairman of the joint panel asked the Chief Executive Officer of NIPOST to forward to the committee details of her business plan to reposition the agency to a highly revenue generating agency.
He said, “NIPOST should have been fully privatised before now because nobody is feeling their impact anywhere in the country.
“We are ready to recommend to the Senate in plenary, full privatisation of the NIPOST except the Postmaster General convince us otherwise.
“The CEO of NIPOST should forward to the secretariat of our committee details of her business model on how the agency would be generating adequate revenues for the country through creative ideas.
“Failure to do this would leave the Senate with no other option than to recommend the full privatisation of NIPOST”