Management at Zambia Postal Services says the four months’ salary arrears owed to its workers will be dismantled in the next few weeks.
Post Master General Brighton Ngoma said workers are currently receiving their September salaries and will soon receive their October, November and December salaries.
Mr. Ngoma however said that the company is not profitable hence its struggle to pay salaries.
He said the company is speeding up the process of collecting debt from both government and the private sector and the arrears will be paid off in the next two to three weeks.
“I don’t want to say anything about claims that the company is making profits but what I can say is that we are not making profits and if you want you can come and check our books, we are struggling to generate revenue”, He said.
Mr. Ngoma said the indebtedness of Zampost to other strategic partners such as Multichoice and Airlines is high and the company will need to open the revenue streams by clearing the debt to return to normal.
“Back in the days, people were coming to the post office to pay for DStv but that is not happening anymore because we owe Multichoice a lot of money”, he added.
The National Union for Communications Workers General Secretary Richard Mulenga recently warned that workers at Zampost will down tools again if they are not paid their four months’ salary arrears.
The Workers who in December downed tools demanding that they be paid their five months’ salary arrears said they feel cheated as government has only paid them salaries for the month of August and are unaware when the September salaries will be paid.
Mr. Mulenga said Zampost was owed 13.8 million by various government departments which if paid can help dismantle the salary arrears.
Zampost is the most useless postal service in the world.
The management of Zampost is largely to blame. This trend of mediocrity started with Paul Simfukwe and continued with McPherson Chanda both of whom had no postal expertise! So the situation has been worsened now with the appointment of Ngoma. Postal services are a specialised business you cannot just appoint anyone who does not understand the industry! For those of you saying people have stopped writing letters think again! Last time I checked Royal Mail was making money! DHL is still in business and just jext door Botswana posts is making money! For your information the postal service works the same way everywhere in the world. The problem in Zambia is there are very few people with expertise in this area!
So this Ngoma guy has given up saying the company is note profitable we know that already tell us what the he!! Are you doing to turnbit around?
Meanwhile Lazy Lungu’s wife is going to States with 25 people
“Back in the days, people were coming to the post office to pay for DStv but that is not happening anymore because we owe Multichoice a lot of money”. How did you end up owing Multichoice as if people never paid for the service? Is it another social cash transfer scandal?
“….Mr. Mulenga said Zampost was owed 13.8 million by various government departments which if paid can help dismantle the salary arrears….”
People not being paid for months as GRZ owes money yet that silly woman Mrs lungu sees fit to take a 25 man delegation to the USA on a chartered jet to look at donated 2nd hand fire trucks ??????
That money Mrs lungu has spend would have covered those salaries.
very true.
Shameful.
Modernise postal services in zambia by hiring educated and exposed managers. Post office personnel seem to be half dead when you go into these places. Buildings are neglected, cobwebs are everywhere in the cielings. Its time they re organised their services and modernised to keep up with the times.
@Dustin well spoken!
“You can come and check our books” says Poster Master General. Financial statements should be in public domain. It is a requirement that all parastatal institution should avail financial statements to the public. How does one check the books in the absence of Bill of information which has not been passed by our parliament? Zampost should avail all financial statements in our tabloids. The public will make informed decision as to whether they are making profit or loss according to availed financial statements. It is pointless to claim that you are not making profit in the absence of financial tools. Most of the revenue collected is going towards wages for top management.
”Next few weeks” dosent sound too good because just a few days without food is agony enough!
@ James buga
The financial problem of ZAMPOST is not totally management neither is it due to mediocrity nor the postal services being a specialised business but it is a structural problem and stems from poor town planning. The problem in Zambia has been the unplanned, haphazard building of houses. Houses must be built in a structured way, that is in a straight line with house numbers and street names.
I guess more than 10 million houses have been built since 1991. Zampost has lost the potential revenue to deliver parcels and letters. Online companies like Amazon will struggle to operate in Zambia because of the above reason. This is also the limiting factor to why there is no growth in the credit market because it is difficult for the lender to locate exactly where a borrower…
@Alibaba to artribute the problems at zampost merely to ‘a structural problem and stems from poor town planning’.
Is a simplictic argument symptomatic of poor understanding of postal operations. Zampost runs postbus, swiftcash microfinance, haulage service etc etc you get the idea?
Now lest look at just one business postbus. The passenger transport business is one of the most profitable but post bus is struggling this has nothing to do with addresses!
Now since you claim unplanned buildings are to blame my solution is to introduce the internet linked address system like in Ghana or Kenya.
lives
Why is the Royal mail and other private parcel and letter delivery companies thriving in the UK? It is simple, proper town planning. The lines of businesses you mention are in a crowded space and Zampost has no expertise and basically this is why they are struggling. With letters and parcels they have the monopoly. A customer must have a physical address . What do you mean internet linked address system ?
Bati thinking of some people!
These crowded places have been there all along baba! This company was doing well 8 years ago with the same crowded places.
Maybe giving it to the Chinese may bring change. …too extreme. Can we send people to UK for sometime to work at the Royal Post Offices. Maybe we can have some survival skills for our dynasour before it becomes extinct.