Senate Threatens  Legislation to Fully Privatise NIPOST

•Why we’re yet to meet N387bn revenue target-NCC

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The Senate yesterday threatened to commence legislative proceedings that would lead to a complete privatisation of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) if the agency failed to change from its current analogue operation and embrace digitalisation for effective service delivery.

Chairman of the Joint Senate Committee scrutinising the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper, Senator Sani Musa, issued the warning at the ongoing public hearing on the MTEF-FSP.

Sani, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance stated this when the Postmaster General of the Federation, Tola Odeyemi  appeared before the joint panel to defend her agency’s 2024  budget proposal.

Odeyemi had incurred the wrath of the senators when she said her agency projected N18 billion as personnel cost for the NIPOST’s 16, 000 workers across the country.

Musa wondered why the NIPOST whose presence cannot be felt anywhere in the country could increase its personnel cost from N13 billion in 2023 to N18 billion for 2024.

The explanation of the Postmaster General that the increment was as a result of the recent hike in personnel cost by federal government to federal workers did not change the minds of the chairman.

A member of the joint panel, Senator Ireti Kingibe attempted to defend the continued existence of NIPOST as a  partially funded agency of the federal government, claiming that every nation deserves their own vibrant postal agency.

She said: ” NIPOST should not be scrapped but should be turned to a revenue generating agency.

“The only thing is that the agency was stuck in the 19th Century analogue operation instead of migrating to digital service for efficient services.

“There is nothing stopping NIPOST to digitalise their offices across the country to offer electronic services for Nigerians, deliver government services at all local government areas and even engage in financial services.”

Kingibe had hardly ended her submission when Senator Osita Izunaso took to the floor to disagree with her.

Izunaso argued that the NIPOST as it is currently structured, should not be encouraged if the country was interested in generating revenues to fund its annual budgets.

Ruling on the matter, Musa asked the chief executive of NIPOST to forward to the committee, details of her business plan to reposition the agency to a highly revenue generating agency.

The  chairman berated the lack of functionality of NIPOST offices across the country and the abysmal revenue generation, particularly from stamp duties.

The committee therefore directed the Post Master General to provide the names of all staff of the organisation, allocation and salary to the committee for further investigation by the upper chamber

It also gave NIPOST two years to establish a plan on how to revamp the service and change the business model to achieve self-sustenance rather than operating at a loss, otherwise, it would enact legislation to ensure total privatisation.

He said: “NIPOST should have been fully privatised before now because nobody is feeling their impact anywhere in the country.

“We are ready to recommend to the Senate in plenary, full privatisation of the NIPOST except the Postmaster General convinces us otherwise.

“The CEO of NIPOST should forward to the secretariat of our committee details of her business model on how the agency would be generating adequate  revenues for the country through creative ideas.

“Failure to do this would leave the Senate with no other option than to recommend the full privatisation of NIPOST.”

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said lack of patronage for its auctioned frequencies was responsible for the failure to meet its 2023 revenue target.

NCC Director of Financial Services, Yakubu Gontor, stated this when he appeared before the Senate joint committee considering the 2024-2026 MTEF-FSP.

Gontor said as at September, the commission had earned N199.8 billion out of its N387.4 billion revenue projection for 2023.

He explained that two frequencies, 600 megahertz (MHz) and 35 megahertz (MHz), were made available for auction but there was no patronage for none of them.

He said this significantly affected the revenue generation of the commission in 2023.

Gontor said: “Our revenue projection from spectrum fee was N387.4 billion. But we ended up earning N199.8 billion as at September 2023, which is a significant difference from the projected revenue.

“We hope to earn more between now and December, but we may not be able to meet budgetary projection.

“This is because frequencies are usually sold through auctions and they are some frequencies that were earmarked for auction during the year.

“However, the auction did not attract the expected patronage. Those frequencies had been reserved for subsequent auctions.”