THE anxiety and frustrations that some residents in the Tamale metropolis go through in order to receive monies sent to them through the instant money transfer system at the Tamale main branch of the Ghana Post (GP) is of major concern to them.
A significant number of them have complained of queuing for long hours and sometimes spending several days going home and coming back in order to collect their monies.
Some of the customers who are mostly made up of traders, students and public servants told the Daily Graphic that the frustrations they went through was “unbearable” as it caused them a lot of inconvenience.
They also blamed the management of Ghana Post for allegedly exhibiting laxity in its operations.
During one of the numerous visits to the GP offices, this reporter spotted a middle-aged medium-sized miserable-looking woman sitting helplessly on one of the plastic chairs provided for the customers.
She said she needed the money so badly that it was difficult for her to go back home without it, and claimed she did not know how to survive till the next day without the money.
Some of the customers, in their frustrations, did not weep but rather heavily criticised the management for allegedly causing them a lot of pain and inconvenience. No amount of persuasion from the cashiers at the counter could stop them from venting their anger on the management.
Undoubtedly, in spite of the challenges the customers go through, anytime this reporter visited the GP offices the place was always busy with customers transacting business.
When contacted, the Northern Regional Director of the GP, Hajia Miriam Koyiri, acknowledged the challenges the GP faced, but said it was not a deliberate attempt by the company to frustrate the customers.
She said they sometimes faced network problems such as the use of the MTN and One-touch mobile phone services to cross-check from various GP offices in the country about monies that had been sent to individuals in Tamale.
She further said reported link failures in some banks in the metropolis where a big chunk of the monies were kept was another contributory factor.
“Sometimes we could have network problems with a particular transaction for hours; today for example we have gone to the banks on three occasions,” Hajia Koyiri said.
The regional boss said the money transfer unit served averagely 200 customers in a day and daily payments to customers amounted to GH¢20,000.
“My brother we are doing our best because I know some of the customers, who tell me we are doing quite better than our banks here,” Hajia Koyiri said.
She alleged that some of the customers were rude towards the officials of the GP and that “they insult us as if we are children but since we were engaged to provide service to the public we have decided to absorb the insults”.
“I have personally intervened in most cases where I discover that a customer has a genuine case; as I speak now could you believe that I have made available 500 Ghana cedis to a customer which the company would refund to me later?” she asked.
Hajia Koyiri said by the end of the month, the management would complete its computerisation system.
That, according to her, would facilitate their operation because with the computerised system, all they need to do, is to feed the information of a customer including his or her telephone numbers into the system and the computer would send a text message to the recipient thereby avoiding the use of mobile phones to cross-check from other GP offices as to whether money had been sent or not.
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