The story on Monday’s front page about Postal Services St. Maarten (PSS) must have come as a bit of an unpleasant surprise for many. While it was known that the Government-owned company had been struggling financially, with monthly losses of some NAf. 80,000 almost since its establishment on October 15, 2011, the problem is obviously much bigger than generally assumed.
Of course, the transfer from the former New Post Netherlands Antilles related to the constitutional changes per 10-10-10 could hardly be called optimal. The building remains uninsured and is yet to be transferred along with the land lease as was the stated intention back then.
Apparently Government now wants a yearly rental agreement for the property instead, which is not going to help the company climb out of its current predicament by allowing an income-generating commercial development there as planned. However, if firm commitments were made they should in principle be honoured where possible, also because there is supposed to be continuity in governance.
Adding to the concern is that Prime Minister William Marlin had described the situation at PSS as “worrisome” in Parliament. He reportedly called its staffing “bloated” and spoke about a representative of the Postal Services BES showing interest in a management contract to help restructure PSS into a “lean and mean organisation” with six or seven employees.
The latter understandably raised tensions among the current some 32 workers. On the other hand, postal companies all over the world are suffering as a result of far less use of regular mail due to the Internet and competition from private parcel-delivery providers.
Diversifying is often the key and PSS assisted more than 10,677 customers in 2016 by also offering other services such as money orders. Still, with these kinds of structural losses increasing revenues alone probably won’t be enough and having to reduce operational cost, including personnel, may indeed become an inescapable reality.
