Assessment of the performance of Ghana Post Company Limited 1999-2003
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Date
2004-11-22
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Abstract
There is no gain saying the fact that the need to communicate is an essential part of human existence. The Postal Service was developed to satisfy this human need. Through the postal service people living in different parts of the globe can be and are linked. The Ghana Post was thus established to provide an efficient and effective means of communication both within and outside the country. However, in the discharge of its mandate, customers have levelled numerous complaints of malpractice and inefficiencies, against it.
The main thrust of this research therefore was to assess the performance of Ghana Post since its conversion into a company in 1999 to 2003. The study demonstrated that the Postal Service was still relevant, but the transformation from a government corporation to a company has not made any significant impact in terms of performance. The old internal organizational culture has not changed. The bad attitudes and habits of the P&T Corporation era are still prevalent. Anti - social practices such as pilfering and mistreatment of mails are rife. In fact about 42% of recorded complaints relate to pilfering and loss of mails. Several factors such as insufficient address, inadequate mail vans, cumbersome mail procedures, poor supervision, apathy, inadequate security measures, to mention but a few have all contributed to the poor state of affairs. Generally, customers are not satisfied with the quality of service and this has cast a slur on the image of Ghana Post.
The above notwithstanding, the company has been making modest profits and consistently paying dividend to government over the years. The Ghana Post recorded its first ever profit amounting to çt400million in 1996 and has since been doing so. It achieved its highest profit of 5. 5 billion in 2003. However, the company was unable to achieve its targeted 12% average annual returns an investment for the period 1999 - 2003, instead it recorded a 7.96% average. The company also suffered revenue leakages to the tune of ¢2.32billion, through under postage, postage stamp and postal orders duplication during the period 1999 - 2003.
In the area of competition, the combined effects of the private courier companies, and improvement in telecommunication and Internet facilities among others have resulted in dwindling mail volumes. The volume of mails handled by Ghana Post fell from 89.8million in 1993 to 65.3million in 2003. Ghana Post response to these threats has been slow. The company is yet to fully exploit its wide infrastructure network, and advancement in information and communication technology to enhance its efficiency and competitiveness. Unfortunately the company relies heavily on Traditional Postal Services which contribute about 75% to total revenue.
Given the over - reliance on Traditional Postal revenue the company needs to diversify and strengthen other sources of revenues, and adopt more efficient and sustainable strategies to improve the quality of service as well as put in place control measures to check revenues leakage.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of
Economics and Industrial Management,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree, 2004