Dotun Shonde, the General Manager, Courier and Logistics Regulatory Department (CLRD), NIPOST, while speaking with newsmen during the clampdown operation in Kano, said the exercise became imperative to sanitize and weed out quacks from the postal service industry.
Shonde said he has received several complaints from Nigerians about sharp practices in the sector perpetrated by the illegal operators who are operating without obtaining licence and contrary to the extant laws of the postal service.
According to him, “the enforcement operations of NIPOST Act provides that before you operate a courier, express, delivery, dispatch and logistics service, you obtain a grant of license from the PostMaster General. It is stipulated in Section 43 of the NIPOST Act CAP 127 laws of the Federation of Nigeria.
“So, as you have seen, we have embarked on clampdown operation, we have people who are operating in defiant of that law, without regard to that extant law as provided for.
“The Postal, Express, Courier and Logistics industry in Nigeria has been proliferated and infiltrated with so many unlicensed/illegal Courier and Logistics Operators with reckless abandonment for ethical standard and professional conduct.
“There exist unethical sharp practices, such as price undercutting, pilfering, broaching, damages, loss and dumping of customers items, poaching and subletting of operating licenses with mountain of public complaints about Customer’s being duped or obtaining money from them under false pretenses, no traceable office address nor registered brand name.
“There abound the issue of public safety and security threats, due to carriage of illicit drugs and prohibited items. We have cases in some other parts of the country where during clampdown we found in their dispatch boxes with illicit drugs, small arms and ammunition, human parts and currency.
“All these things are prohibited in the postal service but because they are quacks and not operating within the professional ethics, so they carry anything. And of course, they have patronizers, people who patronize them because of the illicit activities.
“It is a menace to the Postal industry and portrays a negative image to the Nigerian society at large. It is against global best practices and International conventions.
“The Enforcement Team consists of officials of the Courier and Logistics Regulatory Department (CLRD) NIPOST, armed mobile police officers and men of the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), and members of the press.
“So, we are here to sanitize the postal service in Kano State. The enforcement operations are about sanity to the postal market or industry. We have a lot of quacks operating in that space. No licence, no traceable office address. We have lots of complaints in the office by the Nigerian public.
“It is expedient for any interested private investors into the Postal, Express, Courier and Logistics business to follow the due process and obtain a grant of operating Licenses from the Federal Government. They are required and advised to obtain a grant of Operating License from NIPOST as stipulated by the extant laws or risk facing the full wrath of the law, and prosecution,” he stated.
The General Manager, Shonde, however, stated that it has carried out the enforcement exercise in Abia, Rivers, Edo, Lagos, Ogun, Katsina, Kwara States while hinting that they will continue the exercise in Kaduna, Abuja and later Osun state.
Meanwhile, some of the offices sealed were located around Bompai road, Shari’a Commission road and Tarauni market among others.
