The Government is determined to transform Postal Corporation of Kenya into a modern entity capable of competing with other companies in the logistics and e- commerce space.
ICT and Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo says the government has identified five transformational pillars at the institution focusing on policy and regulatory environment, financial management, internal organization and governance, product and services, technology and innovation to reposition the corporation.
“Interventions must be contemplated in the short-term, mid-term and long-term,” says Mr Owalo. “As will be appropriate, some of the probable interventions may include reviewing financial management, solvency and debt portfolio and how best to manage cumulative liabilities that are anywhere around Ksh3 billion today.”
Mr Owalo said the corporation, which was once the jewel in the government’s crown, had fallen off the radar and has been left behind by the technological advances of the past few decades. It has missed the opportunity to harness the benefits of the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution, and to leverage on them for growth and wider relevance as a critical player in the communications sector, and the wider national economy.
Mr Owalo was addressing the top leadership of the corporation led by the Board Chairman, Mr Peter Kanaiya, and departmental heads at the corporation’s head office in Nairobi. The minister was on a familiarization tour of the corporation was accompanied by Ms Esther Koimett, the Principal Secretary in the ministry and other senior ministry officials.
Mr Owalo noted that some of the competition in the sector is from entities that are only a couple of decades old as compared to the corporation which has been there for more than two centuries. For a long time, the corporation had basked in the glory of State protection and invincibility and became blind to signs of change.
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As a result, the corporation has faced stiff competition from the private sector, whilst contending with high costs of infrastructure yet expected to provide Universal Postal Services (UPS) in the country.
“The choice before us today is therefore between, on the one hand, continuing to look on as this sleeping giant moves from sleep towards atrophy, and may be even death; or, conversely, to shake up, and wake up, the giant,”
He said the Kenya Kwanza Government, through the IC-DE Ministry, is determined to pull the corporation out of its present situation to take up its rightful place as a strategic State agency in the emerging and future competitive technological and business marketplace.
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