Dear Sir,

Last year, I wrote about the MyBermudaPost courier service, which started up in 2020. Recap: Wayne Furbert, then the Minister of the Cabinet Office, announced that the government-run postal service had partnered with Access USA Shipping LLC, a US courier, to import goods purchased online by island consumers and as a result, the MyBermudaPost shipping option was born.

Mr Furbert said at the time: “It is our goal to close the gap between expenditures and revenues. This means that the business model must change to provide more effective and different services than those of a traditional post office in keeping with global postal industry changes.”

Controversial as it was, because government contract procurement rules were ignored, MyBermudaPost stayed in existence and I thought I would do another follow-up to see if the Bermuda Post Office coffers have benefited from another year’s operation of this new public service.

Note: Mr Furbert gave projections of additional BPO revenues to start at a conservative $800,000 for the year 2021, rising to $1.7 million in additional revenues by 2024. Using government BPO total revenue statistics, we can see how successful Mr Furbert’s solution for modernising the Bermuda Post Office — and closing the gap — has been since 2020.

BPO statistics also show employee numbers have declined from 137 in 2020 to 125, which is the estimate for 2024-25. The number of employees includes established and temporary employees.

Since the start-up of MyBermudaPost a little more than four years ago, BPO revenues have declined, expenditures have remained much the same, the number of employees has reduced and salaries/wages have increased. Talk about an unhealthy accounting exercise. And that substantial revenue/expenditure “gap” that Mr Furbert hoped to close? It has only widened.

You may remember that the 2013 Spending and Government Efficiency Report included an assessment of the BPO operations and concluded that the existing business model was not sustainable, given global trends moving to digital communication.

It was revealed that losses were substantial over the prior decade, totalling $56 million, and their predictions were for this to continue. As you can see from the data, they have. In only 4½ years, the BPO losses are at about $35 million.

Is this service, as it is today, worth a taxpayer price tag of more than $9 million annually? You should know that there is a better, more cost-efficient way to provide the postal service and it has been ignored for the past 12 years.

The Sage Report gave the One Bermuda Alliance government of the day these recommendations for overhauling the BPO:

• Close all post offices — we have eight at present — but leave three post offices to be located as follows: one in Hamilton serving the central parishes, one in the east, and one in the west, each serving parishes in their area. The eastern and western post offices should be located on bus routes for ease of access for those who do not drive cars or bikes

• Once redundant sub post offices have been closed, the buildings in which they are located should be sold, rented or repurposed. The preferred option would be to sell the buildings and use funds raised to pay down the national debt

• Cease mail delivery to houses and businesses; construct cluster boxes as in the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. Cluster boxes should be located in each parish

• Reduce staff to the level needed to service three post offices and deliver mail to the cluster boxes

It is abundantly clear that over the past decade, these statistics show that efforts by several administrations to make the BPO service more efficient have clearly failed, costing the taxpayer millions. It is high time for the Government to implement some or all of these sensible Sage Report recommendations for our postal service. Of course, that will take a strong measure of political will, which as we all know, is in short supply around here.

BEVERLEY CONNELL

Pembroke