By Alexia Saoulli
THE ACTING head of the post office yesterday claimed domestic deliveries were now twice as fast as they used to be, with some letters even being delivered on the same day as postage.
Soteris Avgoustis announced the news, presenting the results of this year’s postal service quality survey, which first started in 1996.
But despite reports of better-quality service, there are still numerous reports of delayed deliveries, no postal service on set days and even examples of delivery service failure due to the weather.
“Last week, the postman didn’t show up because it was raining,” one Cyprus Mail reader complained.
Another said he only received post every other day. “It’s a nightmare. I was waiting for my banking exam results one day and they didn’t arrive. Everyone else on my course had received theirs and knew if they’d passed or failed,” said Demetris Christophides. “I asked my father where the postman was and he just shrugged and told me we only ever got post every other day and that that was the way it had always been.”
Christophides lives on 21, Andreas Demetriou Street, CY-1066, Nicosia. “One week, we don’t get post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the next week, we don’t receive any post on Tuesday or Thursday,” he said.
To put his mind at ease over his exam results, Christophides paid his post office in Eleftheria Square a visit. “It was a Thursday and the postman wasn’t due to come, so I popped by the post office in person. Sure enough my results were there, but they weren’t going to deliver them till the next day.”
The only plus is that postal workers at the various sorting offices are usually friendly and willing to help.
“I frequently go by and rifle through bags of letters when I’m expecting something in the post that hasn’t arrived yet. I’m actually on first names basis with a few of the sorters,” said Maria Andreou. “They’re very friendly and have even called me up to say they’d found a package I’d been waiting for from Greece.”
But, although they were helpful when she went by, she didn’t want to have to feel that in order to get something on time she had to make a personal appearance each time.
“One time I was waiting for a letter from the UK, which the sender had paid over £3 to send express, and I got it two weeks later. The worst part was, it had been stamped in Nicosia two days after it had been posted in England. In other words it had been sitting in Nicosia for 12 days,” said Andreou.
Stories similar to these are two a penny, but unless official, detailed complaints are made to the postal service department at the time, nothing can be done about it.
“In the case of letters being delivered every other day or express letters not being delivered promptly, I’d need to know exactly where and when the event took place in order to investigate the matter,” said Avgoustis.
“As for no delivery on rainy days, well what do you expect? Sometimes these things happen and the postman can’t go out or he’ll get wet,” he said, pointing out the service did not have delivery cars and so employees would get drenched if they went on their mopeds in the rain.
“Besides, it’s not as if it rains that often, so delivery service is only suspended under those sorts of extenuating circumstances,” he added.
Normally, letters arrive at the airport at night and are in Nicosia at 6.30am the next day. They are then sorted and delivered the day after that, he said. The same goes for packages and parcels. Registered letters involve sending notices to the receiver, who then picks them up at their nearest post office.
“Letters are delivered every day Monday to Friday and Datapost are delivered on Saturdays as well,” Avgoustis insisted.
In fact, according to the quality survey, letters weighing no more than 20 grams are now delivered on average in 1.8 days, up 56 per cent from six years ago when it took 4.1 days to receive a letter within towns. Larger letters and packages need at least two days to be delivered within districts. This year, a small portion of letters, 12.6 per cent, are even posted and delivered on the same day.
Nicosia receives letters posted locally the fastest in an average of 1.4 days, followed by Limassol and Paralimni in 1.6 days, Larnaca and Paphos in 1.8 days and Polis Chrysochous in two days.
Villages on the outskirts of towns also have much improved postal service this year. Nicosia villages receive letters in 2.8 days on average, Limassol’s in 2.3 days, Larnaca’s in 2.5 days and Paphos’ in 3.3 days. However, there are a few Paphos and Larnaca villages that have to wait 10 days to receive any post.
This improved situation is due to the operation of a Sorting Centre last year, said Postal Service head Vassos Vassiliou.
Despite this, Cyprus still does not compare to the European Union’s postal service standards.
Only 49.1 per cent of letters arrive a day after they have been posted here, while in the EU 85-97 per cent of letters do, reports said yesterday.
Nevertheless, Cyprus would continue to try to improve its postal delivery service, said Vassiliou, particularly since global postal unions suggested postal workloads would increase by two per cent over the next three years, on top of the 6.3 per cent Cyprus has already seen in the past year.
A new automated sorting system would help meet the service’s growing demands, Vassiliou added, as would a further 59 more postmen, which they were waiting for the Finance Ministry to approve.
