Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST), a federal government-owned parastatal under the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, recorded a loss of 17.05% as its revenue fell from N3.63 billion in 2021 to N3.01 billion in 2022. NIPOST was set up to print and provide postage stamps for payment of postage tariff and payment of stamp duties in Nigeria among other functions.
NIPOST continues to face stiff competition from other well-managed privately owned logistics companies in the country. The services rendered by NIPOST though not limited to these include private mail bag renewal, parcel clearance/delivery, billboard/advertisement, courier companies licensing, special delivery/ small packages, P.O. Box renewal, sales of stamp/taxed items, philately sales, sales of postal literature, and international reply coupons.
Others are sales of stamp to post shops/postal agencies, stamp duty (denotation), agency services, transport services, business venture service, international mail income, wrapping and tieing, share of custom duty (con mail), EMS/speed post, post cash, cargo haulage (logistics headquarters), sales of boarded/scrapped.
Based on analysis carried out by the Nigerian Observer, NIPOST received major setbacks from some of its core services that were rendered in 2022. Services such as special delivery/small packages fell by 66% from N96 million in 2021 to N32 million in 2022; transport services declined by 95.5% to N885,348 in 2022 contrasting the N19 million in 2021; philately sales fell by 40.7% from N8.4million in 2021 to N5 million in 2022; sales of boarded/scrapped lost 98,1% to N7.4 million to N137, 600, and also the parcel clearance/delivery fee decreased by 82% from N689 million in 2021 to N124 million in 2022.
The organization gained in some other areas of their services which include 5243% increase in custom duty from N24,781 in 2021 to N1.3million in 2022; post cash gained 264% to N16.1million in 2022 as against the N4.4 million made in the previous year; the profit gained in the business venture service skyrocketed by 3802.6% from N8.2million in 2021 to N323 million in 2022, amongst others.
Our findings showed that the loss was attributed to the fall in its major sources of income as the number of post offices and postal agencies reduced by 19.43% from the 2,794 they had in 2021 to 2,251 in 2022.
The total number of boxes installed in 2022 saw a slight fall by 0.08% to 836,731 in contrast to 837, 428 boxes in 2021. The total private mail bag (PMB) available in 2022 stood at 20, 775, showing a fall of 8.44% from 22, 689 in 2021.
On the other hand, there was some increase recorded in the number of postal articles handled by the organization in the year 2022. It increased by 102.05% from 17.7 million in 2021 to 35.7 million in 2022.
