By Victor Angula|
Namibia Post Limited (NamPost) has come a long way since its establishment decades ago to be a company that delivers letters from town to town in Namibia and outside the country.
Over the years the company has seen its identity change from being a postal service company to becoming a company that, most of the time, does a lot more than just deliver letters and parcels.
Today NamPost has become a bank, a social grant distributor, and courier service, and the company does little to nothing at all in terms of its original mandate of delivering letters.
NamPost has recently gone digital, becoming not only a bank of senior citizens and the rural folk but a national financial service provider that offers loans, and savings through mobile App and internet banking services.
The company also offers tailor-made investment products such as fixed term deposit accounts, call accounts, and 32 day notice accounts.
This is all despite the fact that the company’s name and identity has not changed.
With today’s digital world NamPost has lost its initial core mandate of delivering letters through postal boxes. However, despite the drastic dwindle in numbers of people requiring postal box services, NamPost’s postal box charges have continued to increase over the years.
Today a postal box costs more than N$400 per year.
Yet Mr Gladwin Groenewaldt, the marketing and communication manager at NamPost, says that NamPost’s postal boxes are affordable.
“In terms of affordability, we have to define what is affordable,” says Groenewaldt, “since what is not affordable to someone may be affordable to another.
“Our fees are affordable, especially in Namibia. In the context of Namibia, postal boxes are still relevant.”
Despite the fact that people are increasingly choosing emails and other methods of communication rather than sending letters through the post, Mr Groenewaldt maintains that there is still a demand for postal boxes and therefore the costs of owning a postal box are still affordable.
In the photo: NamPost’s manager for marketing and communication Gladwin Groenewaldt seen at NamPost’s stall at the Ongwediva Annual Trade Fair.
