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By Henry Umoru, ABUJA

AS the 2022 Appropriation bill is still considered by the National Assembly,  Chairman Senate Committee on Communications, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, All Progressives Congress, APC, Lagos Central has pleaded that there should be an allocation for the Nigeria Postal Service, NIPOST.

Speaking with Journalists yesterday in Abuja

 after presenting the report of her committee to Senator Barau Jibrin, APC, Kano North led Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Tinubu said that allocation to NIPOST would enable it to discharge its responsibilities effectively and efficiently.

Tinubu who hailed the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Ibrahim Pantami, for ceding N200 million in the 2022 budget proposal for NIPOST, which has zero capital allocation, said that the agency has a lot to offer Nigerians.

She described her presentation to the Appropriation Committee as quite well because there is not much to defend since “they only have about N4 billion budget, thanked God that Nigerians are now enlightened about budget processing.

Speaking on the modalities for this year budget proposal, Tinubu said ” Projects are introduced within the ambience of the capital projects at an amount of five per cent. So you see that is nothing,  is not that is really affecting the ministry’s budget so they can work with 95 and then they can give to us to ensure that at least our people back home have something that they will say the Ministry of communication has done for them.

“Something is wrong with Nigeria in the management of institutions like NIPOST.

“What is really wrong is most of us that have been privileged to, at least travel to countries that we say observe best practices maintain their institutions.

“I will tell you that in the times I lived in the U.S. and even at times when I go to London, I used the Post Office

“All this other, you know, like delivery agencies that they have all, I don’t want to name names, but they come as a second option.

“As we speak, our NIPOST  is supposed to be doing very well, if they are built up really and they can also have something like a bank.

“If I want to even exchange money, when I go abroad, I go to the post office at times and we go to the bank; you have the option of the post office. If you have that, why can’t we develop a postal system, like in those years past, when we used our postal system to write letters to people, they were effective?

“Now, we talk about the internet and all that, but they use this, but their postal agencies are still viable. So why would we not try to revive NIPOST  and see what it can do for us?

According to her, “the National Assembly has proposed a law to give NIPOST the autonomy they required, adding that the agency has a lot of properties that they can also go into real estate.

“They can be self-sustaining, that is all we’ve done and we look forward to an enviable institution that will create job opportunities”.

“Nigeria will be proud of them, and our children that are coming. You know, it will be less laborious for them and less expensive because NIPOST  and the postal agencies will produce alternative than other delivery agencies will become the second alternative.

The Senator who noted that people can go to the post office and write to loved ones as Christmas is coming, said, “how do you send packages to people. Those are the options,  that we are looking at and it will create more jobs.”