New PMG to Lead NIPOST's PPP Arrangement- Shittu

Mr. Adebayo Shittu, minister of Communications, has disclosed that the stringent and prolonged processes in appointing a new postmaster general of the Federation (PMGoF) was to give room for the emergence of a business minded executive to drive the “new” NIPOST.

Although the Postal Reform Bill lying at the floor of the national assembly has yet to be passed into law since 2004 it was first introduced, Shittu appears battle ready to go ahead with postal reforms.

The Minister while address ICT journalists in Lagos said, the Ministry’s priority in revitalizing the post is to ensure that whosoever will occupy the position will be prepared to face the business challenge of the 21st Century post offices.

According to Shittu, “NIPOST is a major player in the Ministry and the industry and catches my interest. It has a very wide network. Because in the 774 local government areas in the country, NIPOST has structures (offices) in 550 LGA. The other areas where the infrastructures are not available, you still find NIPOST services been rendered through agents.

“If you look at all of these, you will see that there is no human being in our society that is not affected by the services of the agencies of the Ministry of Communications”.

The Minister who was speaking with regards to the ICT roadmap recently announced, said, “Nigerians should expect a new, improved and revitalized ICT industry. For instance, I had a tour of few NIPOST offices. We have an acting Postmaster General (PMG) who was supposed to have retired last December. We are adopting a new pattern of appointing a PMG, so we asked him to hang on till the processes are over. We all know that in the past, a new PMG emerges at the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent PMG. In other words, the next man automatically gets promoted.

“But, on assumption of office, we discovered a need to introduce some business minded people to run the Service. If we truly want to revive the NIPOST, we should be looking for business conscious individuals to run it. All we need was to advertise the position.

"Of course, we got the Presidential assent to appoint consultants to assist us in the processes, whether originally staff or NIPOST or not, they will pass through same strict and diligent process to ensure that of all those who applied, the best will be emerge the new PMG. It’s going to be like the practices in the private sector where multinationals want to appoint a chief executive.

“We are doing this to ensure that whosoever will occupy the position will be prepared to face the business challenge of revitalizing the post offices.

“After the appointment, the next phase will be to ensure that we take from companies bricks of promoters under private-public partnership (PPP) arrangement, because in the new posts, we are looking at having call centres as part of the business; banks, internet service providers (ISPs), etc., to help boost the fortunes of the post.

“We will invite companies to apply and manage these services in the post offices and the profits will be shared in a fair manner.

“I want to disagree with the popular saying that government has no business engaging in business, because government has the welfare of Nigerians to attend to. In other words, the government needs resources in optimum quantity”.

According to Shittu, inspite the dwindling revenue from oil, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was not tired of venturing into diverse ways to generate revenue, likewise NIPOST must be repositioned to play vital role in the economy.