Abdul Rahman Yusop with the most outstanding community postman award he won. — Photo by Chimon Upon
KUCHING: The Ministry of Communication and Multimedia is leaving it to Pos Malaysia to decide whether to absorb any of the present community postmen to serve full-time in the agency.
Its deputy minister Datuk Jailani Johari said the ministry had no objection to that but it was up to Pos Malaysia to make the decision.
“Based on their performance after being appointed community postmen over the past four years, most of them have done a great job and the potential for some to be absorbed as regular postmen is there.
“However, we leave this to Pos Malaysia whether they want to absorb them. The decision is theirs to make,” he told reporters after opening the divisional-level Community Postmen Convention here yesterday.
Earlier in his speech, he said since the implementation of Sabah Sarawak Pos Transformation Plan (PTPSS) in 2010 Pos Malaysia had appointed 450 community postmen and 600 community postmen agents in the two states.
He said the programme had brought tremendous impact to the two states where the delivery coverage in Sabah had increased from only 48 per cent in 2010 to 63 per cent in 2015 whereas in Sarawak the coverage had increased from 59 per cent in 2010 to 86 per cent this year.
Jailani said PTPSS was initiated to improve mail delivery coverage and other postal services to people in rural parts of Sabah and Sarawak.
“Under this programme local people are appointed community postmen because they are more familiar with their
own areas and know almost everyone in their village and it will be easy for them even without proper and systematic house numberings.
“From the feedback we gathered thus far PTPSS is very successful and effective but there are still areas that need to be improved and to bring some improvements to what they already have now we need to inject another RM20 million for the enhancement of postal services in Sabah and Sarawak between 2015 and 2016,” he said.
He said since the launch of the programme about four years ago the government through Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had allocated RM18.64 million for the cost of implementation while Pos Malaysia had spent RM7.93 million for operation costs.
At the function yesterday Jailani also presented awards to outstanding community postmen.