Daily Trust - the online edition

The postal policy and new postal legislation, which seeks to grant Nigerian Postal Agency greater autonomy and deregulate the Nigerian postal space, will soon be in place, the Bureau for Pubic Enterprises (BPE) has said.

The Director, Information and Communications of the BPE, Mr. Benjamin Dikki said the policy and legislation are near completion after both documents were subjected to extensive stakeholder sensitization.

A statement from BPE signed by Chigbo anichebe, the Head, Public Communications, said Dikki made the observation at an interactive meeting on Tuesday between the Bureau and organised labour on the postal sector reform and the restructuring of NIPOST.

He said that on completion, the final postal bill would be sent to the Ministry of Information and Communications which would forward it to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

The objectives of the postal reform, the statement said include: to grant the postal sector sufficient autonomy to run its own affairs; guarantee all segments of the population access to universal service; provision of quality services which support the Universal Service Obligation (USO); Separate between operators, regulator and policy makers; Ensure an open, liberalised market with equal opportunity for all competitors; Guarantee economic viability of the public postal operator; ensure that the population have access to services according to the technological evolution of the postal service and ahieve quality standards similar to best international practice.

In his remarks, the Post Master General, Alhaji Ibrahim Mori Baba, pointed out that his organisation welcomes the envisaged reforms as it is hoped they would strengthen service delivery in the postal sector.

The representative of the Minister of Information and Communications, Dr. (Mrs) Ngozika Okeisaibo, explained that the ministry is committed to a smooth restructuring of the postal sector.