Over a million letters lie unsorted

By Andrea Sophocleous

THE CRISIS of undelivered mail — piled up since last week’s postal strike – – continues with over one million letters and packages stacked in sacks around the country, waiting to be sorted.

A Postal Services Department official told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that there were “definitely no less than one million” letters and packages heaped in sacks in post offices around the country following the May 7 24- hour strike and an ongoing overtime ban.

Postal workers are currently delivering letters that arrived on May 5, which means that they are ten days behind on deliveries.

According to the Post Office official, two to three thousand kilos of letters, books and other packages arrive every day, adding to the pile. He stressed, however, that telephone, electricity and water bills, as well as old-age pension cheques to be sent out soon, would not be affected as they are delivered instantly.

Postal workers supported by the civil service union Pasydy went on strike last week to press their demand for the implementation of a five-day week and the abolishment of hourly-pay in the civil service. They claim the government went back on a 1995 agreement to abolish hourly-pay.

The general manager of the Postal Services Department, Vassos Vassiliou, yesterday denied claims by Pasydy that the government intended to privatise postal services.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.