Letter
By Ganesh

The recent hike in the price of postal services is quite shocking.

The standard mail (up to 20g) tariff has shot up from 30 sen to 60 sen while the rate for letters weighing up to 50g soars from 40 sen to 70 sen. A 100% increase is a huge amount considering Pos Malaysia, for all intents and purposes, is a GLC (see breakdown) and the government should be thinking about the hardships that it would cause to its people with the new heavy postal fees.

The substantial shareholders of Pos Malaysia as at 15 March 2010 are:

1. Khazanah Nasional Berhad 32.21%
2. Employees Provident Fund Board 9.59%
3. Permodalan Nasional Berhad 8.45%
4. Amanahraya Trustees Berhad Skim Amanah Saham Bumiputera 8.18%

It cannot be argued that Pos Malaysia is not making money.

For the year ended 31 December 2009, Pos Malaysia posted a profit before tax of RRM109 million up from a loss before tax of RM0.5 million the previous year.

Its profit from operating activities in 2009 was RM82 million (on the back of turnover of RM902 million), only slightly down from its operating profit of RM86 million the previous year (turnover RM922 million).

So, I cannot understand the hike.

Furthermore, the hike is only justified if proper and efficient service is given. But this is not the case.

My postman often puts my neighbour’s letters into my house. Infact, the word often is an understatement. It happens at least 5 or 6 times a month.

All my neighbour’s confidential mail enters my post pox. Sometimes, if it is very wet due to rain water, I open them before giving my neighbour. I see how much he got in his bank and what he does with his credit card. To make matters worse, what if he visits massage parlours and other unhealthy joints and charges them to his credit card? I would obviously know his dark secret. Luckily he does not.

My mail goes missing too. Infact, since my neighbour is receiving my mail, I suspect my mail goes to other neighbour houses. Unfortunately, I am not in good terms with one or two neighbours because their dogs excrete infront of my gate and I had confronted them, thus souring relationships.

So, I am sure they either open my mail or just bin it.

This has caused me difficulty. I have missed credit card payments and had to pay penalty fees as well as fines.

Who is going to pay me for all the losses I have incurred ie my lost mail, my privacy being intruded (in that my neighbour receives my bank statements), my late credit card fines etc?

This story of mine is not new. Every person in Malaysia has faced this, receiving other people’s mail in their boxes is a common phenomenon.

How can Pos Malaysia raise their rates when do don’t even deliver the most basic of services properly which is getting one’s mail safely?

I have lived in other countries before and mind you, for years, I did not get my mail lost nor does people’s mail come into my postbox.

Besides the heavy burden on the public with the hike in postal rates, there is also the social repercussions. What are they? People will be sending less Birthday cards, Sympathy cards and so on. People become cold. Children and parents would reduce the number of cards sent to each other.

Traffic jams would increase too because people have no faith in the postal system, they drive just to send a cheque or send a wedding card. Thus an indirect increase in traffic jams. I know people, instead of posting a cheque, they drive all the way to a destination just to deliver a cheque.

Can you imagine what happens when you have a wedding and instead of posting 500 wedding cards, you drive and deliver them because of fear that the wedding cards would go astray?

I speak from experience because, when I had my wedding, of the 300 cards I posted, about 10% went missing, causing me a lot of embarrassment and the “uninvited” guests were offended. Till today, some of the so called uninvited guests still don’t even speak to me as they feel offended.