BotswanaPost seeks tariff increase

Martin Nyirenda
Correspondent | Friday January 8, 2010 00:00

In the 2009 annual report, BotswanaPost chief executive, Pele Moleta says that profit targets could not be achieved with tariff levels remaining at suboptimal levels after having been last reviewed in 2006.

Moleta said: 'It is desirable that tariff adjustments be made annually to avoid price shocks from once off tariff rebalancing exercises, thus negatively affecting the gains made with various stakeholders and other government objectives.'

As postal tariffs in the country remain the lowest in the region, BotswanaPost is engaged in on-going negotiations with the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communications to close the gap and introduce commercial rates.

He said: 'Efforts are continuing to drive improvements to make the Post more customer centric and responsive, a pleasant and preferred place to do business.  We continue initiatives through the regional Quality of Service to improve services to the residents of Botswana'.

He points out in the financial statement that the post office is faced with teething challenges that revolve around lack of funding, poor infrastructure, and manual systems, adding that the Post has reviewed other means of funding to modernise its infrastructure and its resources.

He conceded: 'Initiatives shall not be limited to government capital injection, but shall include tapping the capital markets to finance much needed infrastructure and systems.

'We see exciting times ahead for postal services with the expected converged regulator, computerized and modern infrastructure and the much-awaited Addressing Botswana project. This project will enable every citizen to have an address inline with the Declaration of the United Nations'.

This is the first time BotswanaPost has produced a clean unqualified set of results after a three-year dry spell as it tries to position itself to strongly meet its obligations.

Moleta disclosed in the financial statement: 'We spent enormous amounts of time to get ourselves back with a clean, unqualified audit report. It was particularly important to have a clean audit report to create a conducive platform, to approach the market for funding of various projects'.

To score this goal, the Group had to re-state its accounts for the previous financial year, resulting in a loss position of P2 million compared to a profit of P1,03 million previously reported.

This has enabled the Group to meet the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

BotswanaPost chairman, Martin Makgatlhe explains that the Group has accelerated its renewed strides to foster efficient postal service delivery in the country and effectively contribute towards socio-economic expansion of the country.The re-statement was necessary as a means of compliance with the IFRS, which forms part of the Group's historic business performance improvements.

'We started the development of our international mail exchange centre; this facility, which will be automated, has the capacity to sort over 35,000 letters per hour at high speed, accuracy and greater efficiency. It is expected to be completed in March this year,' he said. Other projects on the drawing board and being implemented would enable the Group to embrace its role as the service point for e-government at the height of the initiative to ensure the Group avails its key logistics service provider to all government departments.

The Group wants to further foster improved access and ensure effective home and business mail delivery that adds value to the national economic growth.