Technology Minister Phillip Paulwell

POSTAL rates will be hiked by up to 50 per cent today, an increase that should allow the Postal Corporation of Jamaica to break even by 2006.

The cost of mailing a single letter - for the first 230 grams - within the island (by using regular mail service) will jump from $15 to $30. The cost of mailing a regular letter - that is under 15 grams - to the United Kingdom and Europe will move from $45 to $70. Mailing to the United States of America and the Caribbean will be $60.

With the new rate scale, the annual projected revenue for the Postal Corporation should move to $849 million, but is still well below the more than $1 billion it costs to operate the postal system annually.
According to the Postal Corporation of Jamaica, its bottom line is being affected by the increasing number of private letter operators who bypass the postal system.

Postmaster-general Dr Blossom O'Meally-Nelson

The postmaster-general, Dr Blossom O'Meally-Nelson, told the Observer in May that "private letter operators are organised groups of men on bicycles who get a contract to deliver monthly bills for a company. They don't mail it. A growing portion of the postal market is being eroded by private persons who do delivery."
While it is not illegal for a company to use messengers to deliver small quantities of mail, she said, using a third party is against the law. She said that utility companies were amongst the violators, but refused to name the guilty companies.

Today's increases will, however, narrow the incentive for US couriers to dump mail in Jamaica and then re-mail it to the US at a cheaper cost.
Earlier this year, Technology Minister Phillip Paulwell expressed concern that it had become commonplace for some US companies to use the island as a distribution point for bulk mail, such as catalogues and magazines, because of the low cost of mailing items from Jamaica.

In the meantime, Lance Hylton, chairman of the Postal Corporation of Jamaica, told JIS News last week that the corporation was moving to regularise the sector with the imposition of licences for persons who deliver mails for a profit.
"The standard practice is for these persons to be licensed and they pay a licensing fee, which goes into a universal service fund and that fund compensates for having to provide the service," he said. "However, there are some persons who now operate being licensed and they will be invited to get regularised and pay the fees."

The regularisation of these mail couriers, Hylton said, should be effective before the end of this year. ".We are not looking to cut anybody out of the business once they are willing to operate and have themselves checked (because) they are carrying out such an important service," he noted.
Hylton added that the Postal Corporation was also planning to bring in more revenues from personalised stamps, which has already commenced with Canada Post.

"We have just signed an agreement with Canada Post whereby we will be producing personalised stamps. Initially, it is being done through the cruise-shipping industry; tourists find it particularly attractive," he said.
In addition, he said the Postal Corporation had already commenced direct mail advertising through its network of 600 post offices and agencies islandwide.
"We reach into every nook and cranny of the country, so if you have a service that you want us to sell, by coming to us and partnering with us you can get that message out everywhere in the country immediately," said Hylton.

Hylton said that since the Postal Corporation took over the management of the postal service in 2000, there have been vast improvements in service delivery, with mail now being delivered within three days in the Corporate Area and three to five days in the rural areas. "Persons now for the first time are congratulating and commending the post office," he said.

The improvement, he said, was as a result of the reengineering of the delivery process, through better measurement and monitoring of the system, especially at Christmas time when activities at the postal department are at their peak.

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