Over 100,000 mails returned over failure to use postboxes

Some 155,873  mails were returned last year over the failure of addressees’ to use postboxes and the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) is urging residents to make the small investment to set up letterboxes to ensure the safe and timely delivery of their mails.

Postmaster General, Karen Brown told a news conference on Monday that the mails were returned to the Post Office during the period January to November 2017.

Brown explained that many of these returned mails could have been avoided if residents had mailboxes.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Post Office Corporation, Dr Raphael Massiah explained that it is a tedious process when the postman/woman would show up at customers’ doors and no system is in place for the package to be received.

“It has a negative impact on the delivery of mail across the length and breadth of our nation. So a bill may be delivered to your home but no one is there, your son or daughter may receive vital information from a university local or overseas about their acceptance but because of the absence of a mailbox, the dog might eat it up, neighbours might take it off the fence and that might stymie your best efforts to move forward,” the Chairman explained.

These sentiments were endorsed by Minister of Public Telecommunications Catherine Hughes who announced that a campaign will be rolled out to sensitise the public of the importance of mailboxes.

“It sometimes takes five to six visits by a postal worker before a piece of mail can be delivered to the addressee. This is prevalent because too many of our residents across the length and breadth of Guyana do not have a postbox. Just imagine the cost that is racked up every time a postal officer has to go five or 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 again and then we will have to do the repeat attempts of delivery to their address,” the Minister explained.

Minister Hughes explained that once the campaign rolls out, there is going to be a huge demand for mailboxes and she urged entrepreneurs to take note.

Hughes noted that postboxes are sold at a minimum cost and she expressed hope that the new mailboxes fall in the same cost category.