Accra, Aug. 23, GNA - The government on Monday pledged its commitment to postal services by ensuring that the citizenry enjoyed access to the best possible universal postal service at the lowest price.

The Deputy Minister of Communication, Mr Gideon Quarcoo, said the current environment demanded innovative ideas from businesses determined to survive and urged the postal services to re-invent their operations to a viable enterprise.

Addressing the opening session of the Second Workshop on New Approach to Field Support for Quality of Service for five English speaking West African countries, Mr Quarcoo called for the creation of an environment responsive to the promotion of competition in the industry to improve quality of service and protect the public.

About 30 participants from Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the Gambia and Liberia are attending the workshop to enhance implementation of quality service as well as offer strategic guidelines to position the postal sector on a higher pedestal.

Issues to be discussed at the workshop would include letter mail performance, Universal Post Union (UPU) testing, Global Monitoring System (GMS), parcel remuneration and ECOWAS Road Transport Network Project.

Mr Quarcoo said a significant advantage of GMS was that quality of service was linked to the terminal dues in which any country achieving its quality of service standard could access and thereby expand revenue generation base.

He gave the assurance that the government would continue to support the reform and modernisation of Ghana Post (GP) and allow them greater flexibility to operate their business and encourage them to use the International Financial Services (IFS) systems developed by UPU for domestic and foreign money transfer.

In a speech read on his behalf Mr Edouard Dayan, the Director General of UPU, said quality of service formed part of UPU's mission and GMS which was one of UPU's quality service activities had been piloted in 21 countries including Ghana.

He urged participants to keep the momentum to enable operations of postal services improve in their countries and the region as well.

Mr Abdulai Abdul-Rafia, the Managing Director of GP, said management would complement efforts of the board to achieve resounding success for the company despite the competitive environment and the rapid advancement of electronic information technology which posed a serious threat to traditional postal system.

Ghana Post, he said, needed to re-position itself to face changes in the industry and become an industry leader while it pursued policies that would enable them take advantage of ICT rather than allow themselves to be handicapped.

"It is our intention to computerise our operation and network all post offices to become more efficient. I want to assure you that modernisation would be introduced into our operations and ensure the provision of better quality service to our customers," he said.

Mr Kofi Nyantakyi, a Member of GP Board, said the board would continue to support GP to embark on its modernisation to ensure that customers' satisfaction was met through provision of high quality service.

He said the challenge was for management to demonstrate its ingenuity to survive the increasing competition and render good quality service to the people.