New post office branch opens in Victoria House |07 November 2020
The new Victoria House post office branch is accessible on the ground floor with its entrance facing the State House Avenue
The Seychelles Postal Services in close collaboration with the Seychelles Revenue Commission has recently opened a new Post Office branch on the ground floor of Victoria House building in Victoria, mainly for the clearing and delivery of parcels / packets.
Other services to be provided will include bill payments, e-top facilities, and purchase of parking coupons.
The new branch is supplementary to the existing Seychelles Postal Services (SPS) Central Office located at Liberty House and provides ample space for the increasing flow of online orders.
Discussion between the Seychelles Revenue Commission (SRC), SPS and the Ministry of Finance for the new Victoria House branch started late in 2019, when the SPS central office got swamped with parcels from overseas.
“With the ever growing influx of small packets and parcels over the past few years, this trend has overwhelmed the existing Central Post Office facility. As a consequence, aside directly causing health and safety issues for the staff with large quantities of mailbags stacked in corridors, this was also increasing the risk of post items containing illegal and or controlled items leaking through,” said the deputy chief executive of Seychelles Postal Services, Alex Etienne.
According to SRC’s 2019 annual report, a total of 163,337 small parcels/packets were cleared by both organisations for the year 2017, 144,693 for the year 2018, 138,236 for 2019 and since January 2020 a total of 28,692have been cleared. Although the figures portray a significant reduction over the years; possibly due to clients using alternative services such as courier and due to the ongoing effects of Covid-19 globally, the irregularity of postage resulting in large quantities being received at the same time stresses the resources of both SPS and SRC thus slowing down the expected pace for clearance and distribution of these parcel/packets.
With this new office being fully operational, members of the public should expect a much faster service as part of trade facilitation but this does not mean that the role of customs and other border agencies based in the new facility in the detection of illegal substances, and detection and sanction of all forms of tax evasion and smuggling will diminish. All items going through the new facility will undergo screening and verification as per normal processes.
The public is reminded that similar to other SPS office branches this new branch will also be operating as per their normal business hours of 8am to 3.45pm on weekdays and 8am to 11.45am on Saturdays and health screening / masks are mandatory.
Press release from the Seychelles Postal Services