The Eritrean Postal Service Quality Inspection Office and Its Duties

The Eritrean Postal Service (EPS) has been functioning since the advent of Italian colonialism in Eritrea. It became a member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1993.

Q&A presents a translation of an interview Hadas Eritrea had with two administrators at the Quality Inspection office of the Eritrean Postal Service, Mr. Fisseha Okbazghi and Mr. Berhe Zeratsion.

• -What are the operations of the postal service?

The departments have three sections: an operation that serves Asmara and its surroundings, another section that serves the other regions, and a third one which deals with wrapped items.

The Eritrea Postal Service is a member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and follows the Union’s conventions and rules and regulations. Items are therefore transported through the UPU transportation rules. For the Items which are transported locally, the EPS works with the Harat and Setayo transport companies through bilateral agreements.

EPS introduced express mail service in 1994 and was awarded for its attainments in 1999, 2000, and 2006.

• -How does the EPS deal with cases of items that could be lost in delivery?

With the updated technology system that was introduced in 2005, our previous traditional operation system was replaced. Every item has a registered item number and this number helps out in tracking down exactly where the piece has reached. If the item is reported missing, the EPS tries to look for the cause and take responsibility. However, as the EPS is working to have a centralized digital postal service, people can track down their items at www.eripostal.com

• -What does the Quality Inspection Office do?

The Quality Inspection Office has two departments — a complaint hearing department and a supervision office for all the units in different areas. The department controls the operational activities using the UPU standard. For instance, the domestic department has four sections which are classified by how far the villages are and the availability of transportation. In its international postal service the EPS provides the department has done so well by delivering items to their destination within five days, a system that was introduced in 2010 by the UPU.

When the Quality Inspection Office was established in 2002, it was necessary to introduce new technologies to make our job easier. In 2006, the EPS won a C-level award at the quality management certification scale in Africa. We updated our status to B-level in 2012.There is a monthly evaluation scale we go through. The EPS has an updated IT office that regularly checks what is new, which it then adopts to make the services of EPS more efficient.