Posta on-cause with planned launch of ‘post liner’ buses

By Steve Umidha

Postal Corporation of Kenya (Posta) will go ahead with the planned introduction of ‘post liner’ buses to serve both passenger and parcel business across the country.

Post Master-General Enock Kinara Wednesday said that the corporation has had further discussions with the ICT ministry on how the strategy will be rolled out to push the firm’s revenues.

ICT Cabinet secretary Joe Mucheru had last month asked for further ‘talks’ and deeper engagements on how the project would be rolled out without exposing the agency into losses and in conflict with operators in the Matatu industry.

“We have talked with Waziri and we are okay. The overall strategy is to be able to lower the cost of consignments as they travel across the county. We are not breaking even and this project is meant to prepare us for e-commerce,” said Kinara, when he flagged off 21 motorbikes to be used for mail deliveries across the country.

Kinara said the firm is in the process of finalizing on its planned roll-out of Post Liner Buses project with the introduction of 30 buses – in lease arrangement that will cost the company in estimates of Sh15million and Sh20million monthly with the contracted firms.

The Postmaster-General also said that the Mpost or Posta Mkononi service launched in June had at Tuesday signed up more than 50,000 customers in Nairobi since its launch, 19,800 of whom had paid for the services.