JEDDAH, 30 November 2006 — Saudi Post officials say that they are in the process of training some 17,000 mailmen in order to implement the recently introduced system of delivering mail directly to residences.
“Recruiting and training such a large number of workers is apparently a time-consuming affair,” said a Jeddah Central Post Office manager who did not want to be named.
Saudi Arabia introduced the door-to-door service earlier this year at selected locations in major cities. Post boxes began cropping up throughout Jeddah in February, yet the mailmen themselves are nowhere to be seen.
Under the traditional mail system, people use post office boxes or their places of employment to send and receive mail. And the traditional system is likely to continue because the new system costs a fee that’s higher than renting post boxes.
Even though the system has yet to be fully implemented, mailboxes have already been damaged or stolen.
The Saudi Post has not announced when people might begin seeing mailmen, but it is expected that postal workers will be deployed initially to Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam, the Kingdom’s largest cities.
According to Muhammad Saleh Benten, head of the Saudi Post, the new system will be computerized, with each mailbox containing a tracking number to help deliver letters and packages. The new system will also include a courier package delivery service called Al-Barid Al-Mumayyez (“Privileged Mail”) that will compete with the major carriers, like UPS and Federal Express.
“The new system will save a lot of time and efforts for the public as they will no more be required to visit and queue up at the post office to receive their mail,” Benten said.
That is, once the new system actually goes into effect.
