Post office to launch letterbox campaign after 155,873 mails returned

Feb 19, 2018 News

The Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) is launching an aggressive campaign to restore the use of letterboxes after thousands of mails were returned last year.
During a recent press event at the Georgetown Main Office GPOC‘s Chairman Reverend Raphael Massiah noted in 2017 alone, more than 155,873 mails were returned to the post office and in many cases, due to the absence of letter boxes.
Reverend Massiah explained that the absence of mail boxes, in many cases, prevents the delivery of important documents. He highlighted the negative impact the absence of mailboxes is having on the work of the post office.
“If you travel the length and breadth of the country you will see evidence of brand new housing communities, beautiful houses, beautiful homes, where people live, raise their children, (but) what is absent is we don’t find these boxes. So what that does, it has a negative impact on the delivery of mail, the effective delivery of mail right across the length and breadth of our nation.”
Massiah noted further while 65 post offices are strategically placed across the 10 Administrative Regions with the primary aim to help people, organisations and communities transfer their mail, money and information, it is important for homes to have mailboxes erected.
“We are encouraging our citizens, we are encouraging all household owners, please add a letter box to your beautiful investment and that would guarantee the arrival of your mail, very important mail: local, overseas, and very many other things.”
“There is a little but significant piece that is missing preventing us from being effective and efficient as we can possibly be and that is the little box…”

GPOC‘s Chairman Reverend Raphael Massiah

Meanwhile, Public Telecommunications Minister Catherine Hughes explained that a public sensitisation programme has become necessary due to the increasing amount of mail that returns to GPOC.
Due to the absence of mail boxes, she said, postal workers often have to visit premises more than once to ensure the delivery of the mail and, in some cases, put their lives at risk just to ensure a mail is delivered.
“It sometimes takes five or six visits of the postal worker before the mail gets delivered to the addressee. Just imagine the cost that is racked up every time the postal worker has to go five and six times to try and deliver a piece of mail and then he /she will have to bring it back to the post office to be sorted out again and then we have to do repeat attempts of delivery to their addressees .
According to Minister Hughes, the campaign is to begin very shortly with a message of safety and security of postal mail, and of course the convenience to residents.
“We don’t have to mention again the challenges of postal workers who are attacked by dogs because they know they have an important piece of mail and they venture into a yard or home, only to find that the dog is loose,” Hughes added.

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