President Samia Suluhu Hassan has stated that due to the rapid advancement of human development, the postal system cannot remain as it was in the past years; it must adapt to the current times and market demands to establish the significance of the postal service.

She made these remarks during the inauguration of the Pan African Postal Union (PAPU) headquarters building in Arusha city, where she expressed her delight in seeing that the union recognizes the new direction in postal activities and is committed to digital transformation.

“The resolutions made regarding various strategies to bring change in postal business and activities should reflect the current era and the needs of the modern world,” said the President.

Furthermore, she suggested that African postal services should have a unified system to facilitate online business transactions, as nearly every postal service has already established online platforms to facilitate business activities.

In addition to this, she called on other African Union member states that have not yet joined the union to do so and urged those with outstanding contributions to fulfil their obligations.

“I have been informed that only 45 countries have joined, and during my visit to the building, I was shown that some of them have significant arrears dating back over 30 years.

I believe these are the ones who had lost hope in these postal systems. However, with the existence of this building and the ongoing developments, if we can demonstrate to our colleagues, they will regain hope and return as members so that we can all progress together,” she explained.

The commitment to build the headquarters of PAPU was made by the first President of Tanzania, the late Julius Nyerere, in 1980, after Tanzania was selected as the headquarters of the union.