Business at Snail's Pace

Indonesia News Suara - THE Lenteng Agung Branch post office in South Jakarta appeared
deserted. Out of the three counters available on Thursday last
week, only two were open. Three post office officials could be
seen absorbed in conversation. "It only gets busy when people
pick up their pensions or pay electricity bills," said Marlin,
the office security guard.

The atmosphere was similar at the Pasar Minggu Branch post
office in South Jakarta. Only three people could be seen taking
care of consignments in the service area. The row of seats in
the waiting room was empty and bare. "Nowadays less and less
people use the postal service," said Sihabudin, the head of the
post office. The last time the office was busy was some time ago
when it was used as a place for the disbursement of direct cash
assistance—a government program for the poor.

The post office's reputation is indeed not as "fragrant" as it
used to be. In the past, it was this office that was the center
for the public to post letters, money or send urgent news—by
telegram—if the area where it was to be sent did not have any
means of communication. Post offices existed in all corners of
the country.

The development of increasing fast communication technology
however has resulted in it being as if they no longer have a
use. Communication by letter has been replaced by cellphone
conversations. Telegrams have been replaced by short message
services. To send a money order, now it's enough to press a few
buttons on an automatic teller machine. It's not surprising then
that by the mid-1990s the number of letters sent by post has
plummeted by 70 percent.

In order to confront this situation, the state-owned postal
company PT Pos Indonesia has been carrying out reforms. They
have also broken into the financial and logistics business. But
since 2005, post offices have never made a profit. Moreover in
2004, PT Pos Indonesia, which has 3,500 branch offices,
registered a record loss of Rp160 billion. A bright spot only
appeared on the horizon in 2006. According to PT Pos
spokesperson Joesman Kartaprawira, in the lead-up to the year's
close, the company made Rp5 billion profit.

Again according to Joesman, the biggest single source of income
for PT Pos is now derived from postal service fees for big
companies. This is not surprising. With branches everywhere and
"troops of Pak Pos" postal officials that are acquainted with
every part of their region, this is the competitive advantage of
PT Pos Indonesia that remains unopposed by goods dispatch
service companies anywhere. So telephone operator companies,
credit card companies and insurance companies for example, still
entrust the postage of letters to customers and clients through
PT Pos.

Although PT Pos is now business-orientated, according to
Joesman, they have still not been able to abandon their basic
"service" function to the public. This is what makes it
impossible for PT Pos for example, to arbitrarily close their
branches in remote areas, even though they are clearly suffering
a financial loss every year. "This is one of the consequences of
being a state company," he said.(RED)