•This has been necessitated by increased cost of service delivery.
•It is facing stiff competition from the private sector.
Image: FILE
Cash-strapped Postal Corporation of Kenya seeks to raise postage charges to mitigate rising operating cost amid falling revenues.
This is in the wake of increased competition from private courier services which have eaten into its market share, mainly on parcel business.
The corporation has applied to the Communications Authority of Kenya for approval to review their postage rates upwards, with price increase of between Sh10 and Sh55.
In a gazette notice, CA director, Frequency Spectrum Management Tom Olwero says this been necessitated by “increased cost of service delivery.”
Posta is seeking to increase charges for letters with a limit of two kilogrammes.
It wants to start charging Sh40 for letters of up to 20 grammes, up from the current Sh30.
Those over 20 grammes up to 50 grammes will be charged Sh60, up from Sh45 while letters weighing over 50 grammes to 100 grammes will cost Shh75 to send. This is up from Sh50.
Sending a letter weighing between 250 grammes and 500 grammes will cost Sh150 up from Sh95.
"The authority wishes to notify the general public that any legal or natural person, or group of individuals, who are desirous of making any representation and/or any objection to the proposed revision, to do so vide a letter addressed to the Director-General, Communications Authority of Kenya," Olwero says.
Concerns on the postal tariff review must be filed by July 25.
In the financial year 2019/20, CA issued 29 national and five international courier licences which saw the number of postal and courier licensees increase by 27 per cent, from 229 the previous year to 263.
In three months to June 2020, the number of letters posted locally recorded a 58.2 per cent decline to 3.5 million from 8.5 million in the quarter to March, CA data shows.
Posta Kenya is among 18 loss making state agencies earmarked for restructuring by the National Treasury, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), East African Portland Cement Company and Kenya Post Office Savings Bank.
It currently has a total of 623 post offices spread across the country with 146 sub-post offices.
There are a total of 788 private operator outlets in the country which are giving the state corporation a run for the money.
Of these, local companies are more than 207 with at least 55 international ones.
To remain afloat, the corporation has entered into a number of partnerships with other state agencies, among them the door-to-door delivery of passports.