The General Post Office – An Anachronism

Apr 10, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
On Channel 6 Voice of the People of Saturday April 4, 2015, there was a most interesting observation made by a contributor. The caller made the most imaginative linkage between major robberies of post offices and general elections. He mentioned robberies at Anna Regina, Cane Grove and the most recent Bourda locations with respective elections. It would be useful to learn how many empathise with such a perspective.
What perhaps may be more relevant is the timing of the last robbery (like others): the day old age pensions were due to be paid to thousands of anxiously dependent senior citizens.
Perhaps one extrapolation which can be made from the aforementioned TV contribution is that the Post Office management must by now also be contemplating whether there is any pattern to these incidents, however spaced out might be the periodicity.
There seems to be a legitimate case for the management to be concerned at the loss of a total of more than a hundred million dollars over time; and the consequent glaring non-accountability in each case. It is simply not an acceptable rate of return and serious questions must be raised as to the efficacy or otherwise of the security arrangements in place for the movement of large sums of money and the vulnerabilities that are so easily exploited by common bandits. When one contrasts these failures with the relative success of similar movements of large sums of cash even more regularly, by other institutions, one could only demand some change of culpability to be answered.
In the particular instance so many indigent clients are disappointed and left bereft of the minimal benefit they were long hoping to collect – at a cost of travel too many cannot afford.
The (in) articulate silence of the relevant administration is deafening. Any apology to the discomfited, if offered, may have been missed; but only because it was not vociferous enough.
But in the final analysis more effective security action will speak louder than words.
This institution seems to take pride in maintaining the systems established in the colonial era. With minimal customer service, it insists on restricting its parcel post service to the same central location, despite the exponential increase of customers in the city and its environs. There needs to be a thorough investigation into its organisation structure and management systems with a view to bringing them into the 21st century.
E.B. John

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