Ghana Post starts door-to-door in Kumasi
The Ghana Post Company is to roll out door-to-door delivery of letters or despatches in Kumasi in the first week of August, 2013.
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This is part of the moves to initiate and expand innovative measures to overcome the threat posed to its existence by technological advancement.
The door-to-door service had been in operation in Accra for some time now and Kumasi would be the second city to be hooked onto the initiative.
The Ashanti Regional Head of the Company, Mr Anthony Avorkliya, who disclosed this in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Kumasi, explained that the new postal service would eliminate the time customers spent in chasing their letters at post offices.
With the development, customers would have their letters posted through their pigeon holes in their homes.
Already, the regional office of the company has taken delivery of a number of the letter boxes, which would be made available to interested persons soon.
Ghana Post is also using the new arrangement to enhance communication and quicken response rate to customers.
Mr Avorkliya said companies like the Electricity Company of Ghana and the Ghana Water Company could also drop their bills into the pigeon holes.
“The company is determined to introduce more innovative measures into its operation in order to meet the challenges posed by technological change, increasing competition and customer demands,” he said.
In recent years, the importance of postal services, especially the use of the letter boxes and sale of stamps has shrunk significantly. This is partly as a result of the emergence of the Internet and the revolution in the communication techniques of the media, especially the broadcast media.
As customers of Ghana Post turn to the Internet, communication services offered by the post offices have declined, resulting in a drop in revenue for the company.
It is against this backdrop that the company is going all out to come out with initiatives that would enable them to stay in business.
Mr Avorkliya said it was a fact that patronage of postal boxes had gone down due to the emergence of the Internet.
“But all is not lost, because other areas of revenue generation continued to be explored,” the regional head said.
Currently, the Adum Post office, the biggest in the region, has over 16,000 postal boxes and more than 15,000, have been picked up by customers.
“The problem is that some of our customers have not been paying their bills and in that case, we take over the letter boxes for relocation,” he said.
Formerly, it was individuals who went for the letter boxes but this has changed, with business entities making up the biggest number today.
The regional head said though the company was going through some challenges, the situation was not as hopeless as some saw it.
By Kwame Asare Boadu/Daily Graphic/Ghana