Minister: 81 percent of public satisfied with TTPost

Eighty-one percent of domestic and business customers are satisfied with the performance of TTPost, Public Utilities Minister Pennelope Beckles said on Tuesday. She was winding up debate on the Postal Amendment Bill in the Senate. She explained that customer satisfaction was  measured by an independent third party. While domestic customer satisfaction was 81 percent, business customer satisfaction was a bit higher at 81.4 percent, she said. However the Minister also disclosed that TTPost had to pay a penalty of US $435,115 because it failed to achieve the targets for net income and transit time under the Delegated Management Arrange-ment (DMA) which it has with the Government.

The Minister stated that contrary to the view expressed by some Senators regarding the performance of TTPost together with that of the Management Transcend, TTPost had achieved world-class standards in universal delivery service, revenue growth and most importantly, customer satisfaction. She said TTPost had substantially increased its delivery reach from 182,302 delivery points in 1999, to 325,986 delivery points in 2004. It was on target to reach 339,216 delivery points or 96 percent of households and businesses by the conclusion of the DMA. Beckles stated that in terms of the transit time, DMA targets had not been received. However she stressed that the latest figures showed that over 90 percent of mail was delivered by the second day after posting.

Beckles noted that the only country in the world that achieves 100 percent Day 1 delivery was Singapore. On the issue of revenue growth, Beckles stated that the TTPost had exceeded the targets of $60,577 in overall revenues in Year 2 of the DMA (2001) and $84,720,000 in Year 5. Beckles stated that during the first four years of the DMA several new products and services were introduced, including a bulk business-mailing package for large volume customers, school stationery and mobile phone sales.

TTPost receives US$5.3 million during the term of the DMA under its arrangement with the Government. However, it would receive US$436,115 less than this figure because of the penalties incurred by the DMA for failure to meet specific targets. Beckles stated that the World Bank routinely dispatched a total of six missions a year to TT to review, among other things, TTPost’s progress, implementation of the Capital Investment Plan and quality of governance of the Corporation.