The Chairman of Nigeria’s Senate Committee on Finance, Sani Musa, has revealed that the Senate would consider the privatization of the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) over poor performance.
Musa stated this during an interactive session on the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) in Abuja.
The Postmaster-General of the Federation, Mrs. Tola Odeyemi appeared before the committee to defend the agency’s input in the MTEFand FSP and provoked the Senators by saying the management projected N18 billion as personnel cost for the 16, 000 staff across the country.
In his response, Musa said Nigerians are not feeling the impact of NIPOST and decried the planned increase in the personnel cost from N13 billion in 2023 to N18 billion in 2024.
The explanation by Odeyemi that the request was due to the recent increase in NIPOST’s personnel cost triggered by the Federal Government’s payment of peculiar allowance to workers did not go well with the lawmakers.
Musa thereafter requested that the NIPOST chief forward to the committee details of her plan to reposition the agency to a revenue-generating agency.
He said: “NIPOST should have been fully privatized before now because nobody is feeling their impact anywhere in the country.
“We are ready to recommend to the Senate in plenary, full privatization 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.”
