One of the biggest challenges facing the Government is the administration of pension payments at the nation’s post offices.
Minister of Public Telecommunications, Cathy Hughes recently said that pension payments continue to be a massive drain on the resources of the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC). And given the spate of robberies, Hughes said that the situation calls for the government to move quickly into new payment systems.
The Minister said, “It was only a few months ago that a safe inside the Charity Post Office was torched and $2.2M was stolen. Over the last two years, $8.3M in total was stolen from post offices. It is therefore clear that if our postal services are to become financially viable again, one change has to be the reduction of the amount of cash it holds at any given time.”
In this regard, Hughes said that her Ministry, GPOC, the Ministry of Social Protection and the banking institutions will be collaborating to implement a project designed for getting pensions to senior citizens. The first test of this new system will take place early in 2019, the Minister said.
Expounding further on the project, Hughes said that it includes money transfers to bank accounts, payments by cheque, and several of the newer micro financial payment systems like Mobile Money. The Minister noted the project is almost 80 percent complete and is expected to provide more convenience for senior citizens in collecting their pensions.
