Barrster Adebayo Shittu, Minister of Communication says that plans are underway to hire a “business-oriented” person as the next Postmaster-General (PMG) of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), the government-owned postal services agency.
The Minister who dropped the hint recently in Lagos says that the tenure of the PMG expired December 2015 but an acting head holds sway until a competent replacement has been appointed to head the postal service agency.
”In the past, the new PMG emerges at the expiration of term of his successor. But we discovered that we need to introduce someone with business ideas if we want to revitalize the Post Offices. We should be looking at business-conscious individuals to head the agency”, Shittu said at a recent media briefing with ICT journalists in Lagos.
”The Acting Postmaster-General of NIPOST was supposed to retire in December, but we are adopting a new pattern of appointing a PMG. So, we asked him to hang on till the processes of appointing a new PMG is over”, he adds.
According to the Minister, vacancy advertisements have been placed for qualified candidates to fill the position of the PMG. A new PMG is expected to emerge either from the private or public sector.
”What we did was to advertise for the position, we are also going to appoint consultant to assist us in the process. The applicant, whether in NIPOST or not, will go through a strict and diligent process to ensure the best candidate emerges.”
Shittu says that the Ministry’s priority in revitalizing the Post Offices is to ensure that whosoever will occupy the position will be prepared to face the business challenge of the “21st Century Post Offices.”
“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.
Barr Adebayo also gave a hint of how the new revitalized NIPOST system would look like on his watch
”The new post office we are looking at will have a call centers. We are also looking at having banking services and Internet service provisions as part of the new revitalized post office”, he adds.
He however said that plans are in underway for proper synergy between the private and public sector in managing the new post office
”We will invite companies to manage these services in the post office and Public Private Partnership(PPP) will be maintained such that profit will be shared.”
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