The Courier Regulatory Department (CRD) was created by the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) through act 41 of 1992 in response to the noticeable chaotic trends in the courier industry. Since its inception, the Department have gone to great stride to sanitise this vibrant sector of the economy with strict monitoring and weeding out of un-licensed courier operators. Coordinating the activity of this Department is a very vibrant and focused personality, Mr. Simon Emeje, a Senior Assistant Postmaster-General, in a chat with our correspondent he gave an insight to the world of courier operation in Nigeria. Read on...

Please can you introduce yourself sir?

Mr. Emeje: I am Simon Emeje, the Senior Assistant Postmaster-General and the head of the Courier Regulatory Department (CRD), a department vested with power to monitor and regulate the courier operators in Nigeria.

What led to the establishment of the Department?

Mr. Emeje: The Department came on board to regulate and check the amorphorous state of the industry. Everybody seems to be in the industry and this led to many problems cropping up. Before the Department was established, an operator seeking license got it from a desk officer in NIPOST. This practice was quite unprofessional and allowed for inadequate regulation, at such the Department was born after the first Nigeria Courier Summit was held in April 2001. The summit allowed the various stake holders in the industry to rub minds and they came out with a communiqué which was forwarded to NIPOST. Two things came out of the communiqué, the need to review courier regulation and the establishment of the Courier Regulatory Department (CRD). Courier Regulatory Department was later established by an act of parliament, Act 41 of 1992.

What are the challenges facing the Department?

Mr. Emeje: We are faced with many problems especially in the area of educating the operators of what courier is all about. We have included a training curriculum to train the operators for both the new entries and the old ones. We also have to deal with illegal courier companies which needs to be eliminated in the system. We have taken careful steps to inform the unregistered courier companies to do the proper thing by first giving notice, advertising in the media, making official visits before having to clamp down on them. There is the problem of undercutting, low tariff regimes that is giving very ridiculous price by the illegal courier companies. Also, some courier companies don't adhere to the weight standard which is between 1/2 kg to 50 kg.

Your department has been accused for arbitrarily changing the fees payable for license from N250,000 to N1,000,000 without informing the operators and they also said they are not allowed to operate cargo and haulage, is that true?

Mr. Emeje: The fees has been fixed before the Department was created. The |Department is just one year in operation and the fee they are complaining about has been fixed since two years back. For the second question, courier has a minimum of 1/2 kg to 50kg and anything above that weight category is not under courier services.

For further information contact:

Mr. Simon Emeje,

Senior Assistant Postmaster-General and Head of CRD,

Communication Building,

Lafiaji, Obalende,

Lagos, Nigeria.

Telephone: 234-1-263-3037

Fax: 234-1-263-0911

See Also:

Courier Service in Nigeria

Profile of Courier Regulatory Department, Nigeria.

Procedure for Registering a Courier Company in Nigeria

Courier Companies in Nigeria

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