The Courier Regulatory Department of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) has revoked licences of 30 courier companies in the country.
The General Manager, CRD, Dr. Ishaya Diwa, made the disclosure at a media briefing in Lagos on Thursday.
Diwa said that the licences of the companies were revoked because the operators were not complying with the rules and regulations governing courier services.
“For the past two years, the CRD of NIPOST has consistently been trying to sanitise the courier industry with its continuous events, such as clamping down on companies.
“We need our courier operators in the country to work with the best standards, as courier business is a worldwide business and any form of infringement will tell bad for the country.
“This revocation is also a means of making the environment conducive and worthwhile for operators to thrive,’’ he said.
He said that the revoked courier operators were spread across the country, but the majority of them were in Lagos.
Diwa said that the criteria for revoking the licences were based on lack of renewal of licence upward to three years and activities done not in tandem with rules and regulations of NIPOST.
He cautioned the public to be aware of the revoked operators and desist from working with them.
Diwa said that revoking an operator’s licence was not a death sentence, noting that if an operator changed the mode of operations, it would have to meet certain criteria, pay the backlog of the penalty; before it would be restored to service.
Diwa said that the biggest challenge facing the CRD was that the smaller operators did not have fixed addresses where they could be seen physically.
He said that economic hardship were not good reasons for the operators to be cutting corners.
“The department has always been relaxed in enforcing rules, but, unfortunately, Nigerians like to take advantage of things with impunity.
“It is good to have a small and neat courier business in the country than having the proliferation of services.
“Presently, we have 108 courier companies that are healthy and financially stable, unlike when they were 300.
“The operators’ renewal fees in the country is about the cheapest in the world at N350,000 per annum. It is just that our people like cutting corners and that is not good for business,’’ Diwa said.
