Our situation after 500 years
during my teenage days i was fond of collecting stamps and collecting my father’s mail was a source of enjoyment because i used to get a good collection of new stamps every time. one time, i noticed that the british stamps were free of the name of the state but carried only the picture of the queen on the stamp or in a corner of it was the price.
i knew later that this exception was granted to britain only in honor of its priority in providing this service, dating back to 1516.
later in 1837, roland hill invented adhesive postage stamp – the black penny, which today costs perhaps one million pounds in the antique stamps market, but was officially issued only three years later, and then the service with time developed and spread throughout the world.
this was an introduction to the subject of our article on the deterioration of the postal service in kuwait, until it reached the bottom with a complete halt in the last three weeks. from the view of the heaps of letters and postal parcels that have accumulated in the post offices, both in and out we are very sad to realize that there are tens of thousands of people who still use this method, either personally or commercially, and rely on it although there are other alternatives whether high or low cost such as the internet, whatsapp and the courier service.
distribution of messages often needs the postal officer to read the po number and put it in the right place, or place a card in the box telling the owner that there is a parcel to receive from another place.
a small percentage of messages require delivery to their owners on their addresses, therefore the performance of this service can be considered the simplest work in the government, however, we have failed since liberation, without exaggeration, until today to provide the service properly, or to delegate it to an efficient third party.
if we look at the postal sector, we will find an army of undersecretaries, managers, supervisors and heads of departments, almost all of whom perform prayers, most of them were fasting in ramadan, some of them performed hajj (pilgrimage) several times and all of them receive their salaries monthly.
most of them go to their homes daily without feeling any guilt when they see tons of messages and packages that are delayed in distributing them to their owners outside kuwait, or being distributed inside.
it is nice that we care, dream of a new kuwait, and it is more wonderful to see our dreams come true in the region, but all these expectations will be meaningless if we are not interested in minor issues and addressing them. how does a country like kuwait with her human and financial capabilities fail to provide a half-reasonable postal service over twenty years?
what is the benefit of a new kuwait, without reliable human beings and efficient managements? the treatment is not difficult, but i hope we would find it when it is too late.
