Carisa Lee

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les said it’s time for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Cor­po­ra­tion (TTPost) to be­come fi­nan­cial­ly sus­tain­able.

At the launch of the cor­po­ra­tion’s new ‘Track and Trace’ sys­tem in Pi­ar­co yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les told those present that TTPost should no longer de­pend for its sur­vival on fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance from the gov­ern­ment but learn to adapt to re­main fi­nan­cial­ly vi­able and rel­e­vant.

“Change is al­ready up­on us…de­pend­ing on an­nu­al state sub­ven­tions will soon be a thing of the past,” he said.

Gon­za­les said as a young min­is­ter, on a week­ly ba­sis, he sees the fi­nan­cial num­bers and re­alis­es how ur­gent it is for util­i­ty com­pa­nies to be­come fi­nan­cial­ly sus­tain­able.

“Be­cause at the end of the day we need a TTPost and we need all our util­i­ty com­pa­nies de­spite our fi­nan­cial chal­lenges,” he said.

The Min­is­ter said the new Track and Trace sys­tem was set against the na­tion­wide roll­out of the postal code.

Gon­za­les said the cor­po­ra­tion needs to trans­form in­to an ef­fi­cient, ag­ile ser­vice provider equipped to meet the na­tion’s chang­ing needs.

“This is nec­es­sary if TTPost is to sur­vive and thrive,” he said.

He said the chal­lenges faced by TTPost were not iso­lat­ed to here alone, as struc­tur­al changes af­fect the glob­al postal in­dus­try. This he said was pro­pelled by ad­vances in in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy and chang­ing con­sumer be­hav­iour.

“The ar­rival of COVID-19 pan­dem­ic on­ly served to ex­ac­er­bate these chal­lenges,” he added.

But the chair­man of the Cor­po­ra­tion Ha­keem Ah­mad said de­spite the pan­dem­ic the over­all couri­er busi­ness grew by 49 per cent and the do­mes­tic couri­er busi­ness in­creased by 67 per cent in the last fis­cal year.

He said this in­crease will as­sist in re­duc­ing the cor­po­ra­tion’s de­pen­dence on Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port and the in­tro­duc­tion of this new sys­tem was one of sev­er­al ini­tia­tives tak­en by TTPost in the last year to im­prove cus­tomer ser­vice.

“The board has al­ready tak­en steps to de­liv­er a five-year strate­gic plan for the cor­po­ra­tion,” he said.

Ah­mad said se­ri­ous em­pha­sis will be placed on digi­ti­sa­tion of TTPost’s ser­vices and the map­ping phase has been com­plet­ed.

The Chair­man said iGovTT will as­sist with the on­line trans­for­ma­tion. He said a new post of­fice has al­so been opened in Rox­bor­ough, To­ba­go.

Min­is­ter Gon­za­les said it was an ho­n­our to speak at the com­mis­sion­ing of a new project and felt good that TTPost was demon­strat­ing its abil­i­ty to im­prove its ser­vices to cus­tomers and fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty, but the cor­po­ra­tion must have a new busi­ness mod­el.

“The struc­ture that you have is out­dat­ed and it can­not sup­port your new busi­ness mod­el,” he warned.

The Min­is­ter said he was dis­ap­point­ed in TTPost’s Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP) as it did not re­flect new ini­tia­tives.

“I saw im­prove­ment in your in­fra­struc­ture your build­ings etc. but whilst that is good it is not go­ing to im­prove and in­crease the in­come streams,” he said.

Gon­za­les said he looks for­ward to 2022 be­ing a very ac­tive year for TTPost and wants a PSIP that will point to a re­newed or­gan­i­sa­tion go­ing for­ward.

“With new prod­ucts and new ser­vices…it is well with­in your ca­pac­i­ty,” he said.

But TTPost was not the on­ly pub­lic util­i­ty com­pa­ny the min­is­ter said would be mak­ing im­prove­ments soon as the min­is­ter said they have set out to trans­form the wa­ter sec­tor, Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny (SWM­COL).