The government says it will revamp the ailing post office business in the country to help create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth.
The country’s post business which is in a very distressed state is said to hold the panacea to solving unemployment in the country.
But years of neglect and starvation of funds have left it a pale shadow of itself giving rise to other alternative sources of receiving and exchanging correspondences.
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Thursday, 17 August 2017, to answer queries raised in the Auditor-General’s report, Deputy Communications Minister, George Andah, stated that revamping post business is high on the agenda of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.
“Ghana Post has a lot in terms of assets. It has a lot in terms of network. But if you listen to the acting MD, there are two words he keeps saying and that is we’re looking at financial inclusion, we looking at technology. But we are just asking for time to turn Ghana Post around and we’ll deliver on it. I mean it’s a national brand, it’s a brand that Ghanaians are proud of and we’ll make sure that we turn it around. Just give us a bit of time,” Mr Andah said.
The acting MD of Ghana Post, James Coffie, on his part, said, “We have a four year plan. In 2017, we are fixing the fundamentals. 2018, we expect to grow by about 20 per cent, same for 2019 and then we’ll see what happens in 2020. But we expect that by 2020, we should start paying dividends to the government of Ghana again.
“As we speak now, the State Enterprise Commission has asked us for a plan for injection of capital into the business which we have submitted to them. We are providing jobs and at the moment, we have employed 1600 people and indeed if you look at the strategy of the Indian Government, it uses post office to generate employment… So, in terms of government’s promise to turn around unemployment, if we turn around Ghana Post, there will be a lot of opportunities for quality employment.”
But ranking member of PAC, Kofi Okyere Agyekum, disagreed and wants the state to dispose of the troubled company.
He said: “Sometimes we get very sentimental and attached to a product because it is a national brand. But if you look at all the indicators, probably we should let it go. These days people are getting letters on their phones, they are getting WhatsApp messages, money on their phones and parcels are now being carried by transport companies. If Ghana Post doesn’t exist, what would Ghanaians have lost? We have to let it go.”
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