The Federal Government has inaugurated a steering committee charged with the responsibility of laying the foundation for the reform of the Nigerian Postal Service.
Inaugurating the committee in Abuja, the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, urged the National Assembly to expedite work on the NIPOST Reform Bill as they resume from recess so that the bill could be passed into law quickly.
The ceremony also marked the inauguration of two documents -Restructuring and Modernising Nigerian Postal Service and NIPOST Vision 2020 – aimed at repositioning the Nigerian postal and courier system.
Shittu said the present administration needed the collaboration of the National Assembly to deliver on its campaign promises to Nigerians by expediting actions on bills targeted at the reformation of the country.
He said, “We will appreciate that the bill is considered expeditiously important to the socio-economic policy thrust of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.”
The minister said the bill sought the amendment of all the existing postal services law to give effect to the recommendations of the NethPost Consultancy of The Netherlands and all other interest groups that worked with the ministry, NIPOST and other stakeholders in the postal services.
He said although NIPOST reformation was not part of the campaign promises of the All Progressives Congress, the ministry initiated moved to reposition the agency to make it socially relevant, economically viable and internationally acceptable.
Speaking at the event, the Postmaster-General of the Federation, Mr. Bisi Adegbuyi, commended the government for its determination to drive the reform process to a logical conclusion and for the concerted efforts to change the trajectory of NIPOST.
He said the management of NIPOST had in the interim taken a step at tinkering with reformation through certain restructuring steps.
Adegbuyi said, “It is in this spirit, therefore, that the new management of NIPOST crafted a four- year strategic plan – NIPOST Vision 2020- (2017 to 2020) to guide the implementation.
“In considering the contents of the various documents, however, it is obvious that there are programmes that can be implemented in the short term in accordance with government policy, while others can only be implemented in the long run after the passage of the Postal Sector Reform Bill into law.”
The steering committee is chaired by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr. Sonny Echono.
Other members include Adegbuyi, who is serving as the vice chairman, and the Special Adviser to the Minister on Digital Resources, Mr. Akeem Yusuf, serving as the secretary.
