Mcmc Killing Pos Malaysia

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EACH time when a postman delivers letters or parcels to my home, I cannot help but wonder about his future should Pos Malaysia continuously gets a second class treatment from the government, notably the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia.

On top of that, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is still dragging its feet on formulating a more conducive market synergy for the only postal service for the country. With the fast growing international postal services, Pos Malaysia seemed to be sidelined by the government regulators.

Yes, I can just ignore the plight of 23,000 employees of Pos Malaysia nationwide but it involves maybe half a million mouths to feed. Something weird to make comprehend that Pos Malaysia, as a fully-privatised entity, is not given a free hand by MCMC and the ministry to chart its own passage in the ever-expanding business.

The management have had many meetings with the minister and top officials of MCMC but has yet to be awarded with the right tariff. Perhaps the best what MCMC has done thus far is by issuing licences to more than 100 private postal companies which are taking away a large chunk of Pos Malaysia revenue. Sound a bit cynical uh, but that's fact.

With other international postal companies operating in Malaysia, including FedEx, Pos Malaysia eventually will have to earn from the end-mile delivery, sending letters and parcels to remote areas,  particularly in Sabah and Sarawak where no other companies willing to serve. This is another big blow for Pos Malaysia. For instance, the charge being imposed on the companies (say, 60 sen) is freely multiplied (to some extent RM10) by these companies.

This pushes Pos Malaysia further close to the edge.

The company tend to incur more losses next year when the world postal service embark on massive program to hike tariff and surcharge. With no sign that Putrajaya will revise domestic postal tariff, Pos Malaysia might end up like Proton when the national car manufacturer started to lost its market share due to the influx of Korean and Chinese makes in mid-90.

Liberalisation is the keyword for Pos Malaysia. The government could at least consider a new tariff and charges in tandem with global postal trend. Being the cheapest service in Asia-Pacific region, Pos Malaysia must be given a nod to revise the tariff, last revised about ten years ago, if it needs to stand tall with other countries.

The ministry and the MCMC must stop toying around with suggestions and proposals to make Pos Malaysia a winner. Being ignorance of the needs to have a good and strong postal provider is an essence in a booming nation like Malaysia.

With the rapid growth of more industrial estates, housing projects and new townships, Pos Malaysia will find itself lagging in business should the government keeps treating it as a entity of no significant. The ever-growing online business is adding heavy traffic to postal services and making Pos Malaysia the pillar of such business is the responsibility of the government and its regulatory bodies.

Politics and personal glory aside, let's come to senses.

When Tenaga Nasional and some other utility companies are allowed to introduce new tariff and regulate their own business, Pos Malaysia falls on bad politics!

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