On Friday, the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) unveiled new fees for Courier and Delivery Service providers and this has been greeted with lamentations and anger on social media with the hashtag #SayNoToNipostFee
According to NIPOST, the new regulations being put in place were aimed at protecting genuine courier and logistics operators by wielding out unregistered ones. It added that it would defeat the concept of ease of doing business if logistics companies are allowed to multiply with no regulations guiding their operations.
NIPOST spokesman Franklin Alao said that “The new regulations were not planned to frustrate ease of doing business rather they aimed to promote growth of MSMEs. It would create a sense of sanity, consumer-service provider trust.
See the list of fees as circulated on social media
He added, “It is part of the strategies to ensure effective service delivery as consumers would know the capacities of the operators they are dealing with.
“Where there can be issues is where a courier/logistics company with capacity for a local government area wants to operate on a state-wide or nation-wide scale. This would not be acceptable.
“If your license is for a state, limit your operations to the state/ region.”
With the new directive, International courier companies like DHL, UPS, will have to pay a one time fee of N20 million (approx. $53,000) and an annual renewal fee of N8 million (approx. $21,000)
Courier firms operating within municipalities are to pay N1 million (approx. $2,600) for licence and N400,000 (approx. 1,000) annually.
For Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the licence is N250,000 (approx. $660) while the annual renewal of the licence is N100,000 (approx. $263). This refers to delivery companies with less than five delivery vehicles in their fleet.
However Nigerians on Twitter think NIPOST is only looking at ways of increasing its revenue while not considering the hardship Nigerians were going through. They believed that the government should be helping companies to thrive, instead of slowly and systematically strangling small businesses.
Another set of people are saying that even after the government killed the bike-hailing businesses and the businesses pivoted to delivery services, the government is now going after them again.
Here are some of the tweets on Twitter:
NIPOST spokesman Franklin Alao, in a statement late Friday night said genuine business owners who know what the logistics business entails would not be part of the protests against the new regulations.
The anger on Twitter has prompted the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy in Nigeria, Dr. Isa Pantami to tweet on this issue, challenging the right of NIPOST to increase fees without its approval.
Interesting when NIPOST recounted in a tweet that the Minister approved the reviewed regulations.
However as it stands, it would seem that the review has been suspended for now by the Honourable Minister.
We await the final instruction on the next steps. Would the fees be revised downwards or effectively scrapped?
Personally, I do believe that the courier and logistics industry should be regulated and there should be controls put in place to regulate the operators. However, the regulatory body should consider the business environment, discuss with the stakeholders and work out the best charges to implement.
