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Postal workers protest licensing of Chinese courier services firm Speedaf
Workers at Postal Corporation of Kenya Nakuru office.
Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) employees have protested the licensing of a Chinese firm Speedaf to offer courier services in the country saying they will soon be rendered jobless.
They also claimed that the state agency has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Chinese firm to offer services throughout its network and destinations across the country.
Some of the customers of PCK raised an alarm on social media that their international parcels were being delivered by Speedaf Company which they had not entered into a contract with.
"If you're ordering items through Posta Kenya, there is a company called Speedaf that intercepts your packages soon as it arrives in the country. They then call you to inform you that they have it and will deliver it to you at a fee," said one of the clients.
However, in a quick response Posta Kenya through their verified Twitter handle denied that it has entered into any agreement with Speedaf.
"Good afternoon, we thank you for the tweet regarding your packages. We would like to clarify that we do not have a contract with Speedaf. We also do not have a contract with AliExpress," said Twitted Posta Kenya.
Top managers
However, the PCK employees blamed some top managers in the state agency for secretly signing a MoU for their vested interests.
"PCK has EMS (Expedited Mail Service) which is an international and domestic courier service for both documents and parcels and we wonder why our managers would enter into such a contract which is a conflict of interest," said a PCK employee in Nakuru.
The employee said EMS services was the only left service in the cash strapped corporation.
"EMS was the only remaining stream of revenue at PCK and with the new arrangement the corporation is headed to the grave," added another employee from Machakos.
Services at PCK have been under attack for years. The volume of mail delivered has consistently dropped as advances in technology ravaged other services like rental boxes and money transfer services.
The rise of the internet has also disrupted postal services, reducing the state agency into a limping duck struggling to meet its financial obligations which have been complicated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Covid-19 has eroded Posta revenues by 75 per cent, meaning it cannot pay salaries or meet other financial obligations.
Disgruntled employees said the corporation owes them two months’ salary arrears and wondered why it was killing the remaining revenue source by entering into an ambiguous MoU with a competitor.
The Communication Workers Union (Cowu) blamed the woes at PCK on mismanagement.
The union called on the government to intervene and reverse the state agency’s fortunes.
"The ailing parastatal faces mounting debts running into billions of shillings in non-payment of salaries or pension to its 2,000 staff and retirees, and failure to remit statutory dues and settle payments to suppliers against annual income of just Sh2.2 million," said Benson Okwaro, the COWU secretary-general, in a past statement.
Data from the Auditor General indicates the Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) spends Sh2.2 billion annually on employee salaries.
