Postal service to go public

THE cabinet yesterday decided the postal service should be converted to a public company with the state as the sole shareholder.

A cabinet announcement stated that post office employees would be given the chance to own shares in the new company if they wanted.

In explaining its decision, the cabinet stated that foreign postal service experts had “repeatedly noted” the inability of the local postal services to function efficiently and meet customers’ needs.

“A study by the Cyprus Development Bank concluded that if the department is not made autonomous and the same tendencies continue, in a few years Cyprus post offices will be converted from profitable to loss-making,” a cabinet statement said.

The Council of Ministers also noted that the postal sector was already largely liberalised and would become even more so after accession to the European Union.

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.