Postal Revenue Drops to N3bn in 2022 – NBS
The National Bureau of Statistics data shows that the total revenue from postal activities fell by 17.05 per cent to N3.01bn in 2022 from N3.63bn in 2021.
It also revealed that the number of post offices and postal agencies in Nigeria fell to 2,251 in the same year, a 19.43 per cent decline from the 2,794 that were recorded in 2021.
The NBS, in a report titled ‘Postal services data: 2022),’ said, “The total number of boxes installed in 2022 was 836,731, showing a decrease of 0.08 per cent from 837,428 in 2021. The total number of PMBs available in 2022 stood at 20,775, showing a fall of 8.44 per cent from 22,689 in 2021.
“The total number of postal articles handled in 2022 increased by 102.05 per cent from 17.7 million in 2021 to 35.7 million in 2022. Lagos state had the highest number of boxes installed in 2022 with 143,416, while Jigawa recorded the least with 1,800.”
According to the statistics body, there was now 887 post offices or departments, 16 sub post offices, 58 branch offices, 99 counter extensions, 281 post agencies, 800 post shops. And 110 head post offices. In 2022, the total number of mails handled domestically and internationally by the Nigerian Postal Service was 35,676,118.
15,669,072 mails were domestically handled, 543,893 were dispatched abroad, and 19,463,153 mails were received from abroad and delivered in Nigeria.
Most of NIPOST’s revenue was from EMS/Speedpost (N838.89m), NIPOST premises/space (N391.35m), Business Venture Service (N323.53m), and International Mail Income (N235.23m).
For a while, the Federal Government had been attempting to unbundle assets of NIPOST to boost operational efficiency and revenue generation.
While commenting on the process, the former minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, said, “We have many policies of transforming NIPOST in the pipeline and part of it will unbundle NIPOST.
“We also have the NIPOST Act ready for amendment. We have a plan with a property and development company. The company will bring together all the properties of NIPOST, develop them, and make sure that the government generates revenue from them.”
“All generated revenue will go into developing sectors like health, education, agriculture, security, and other social developments.”
Recently, the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, noted that NIPOST had over 1,180 post office outlets and 3000 agencies nationwide, and should be playing a more important role in the country’s digital economy.
