SingPost fined $300,000 for dismal delivery service

It failed to deliver 99% of local basic letters within the CBD by the next working day over four months, amongst others.

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has imposed a financial penalty of $300,000 on Singapore Post (SingPost) for failing to meet the postal Quality of Service (QoS) standards for delivery of local basic letters, registered basic letters and international basic letters in 2018, an announcement revealed.

Under IMDA’s Postal QoS framework, SingPost is required to deliver 99% of local basic letters to an address within the Central Business District (CBD) and 98% of local basic letters to destinations outside the CBD by the next working day. However, SingPost did not deliver 99% of local basic letters within the CBD by the next working day in four months.

Also read: Daily Briefing: SingPost fined $100,000 for service standards failure

The Postal QoS framework also requires SingPost to achieve 100% delivery of local basic letters and registered basic letters by the second working day, but SingPost did not deliver 100% of local basic letters by the second working day in nine months. SingPost also did not deliver 100% of registered basic letters by the second working day in four months.

SingPost is also required to deliver 99% of international incoming basic letters received before 3 p.m. at Singapore Post Centre to an address within the CBD and 98% of international incoming basic letters to destinations outside the CBD by the next working day. SingPost also has to despatch 100% of processed outgoing basic letters to departing flights by the next working day.
SingPost did not meet these requirements as well.

In assessing the penalties, IMDA took into account that SingPost had 20 incidents of non-compliance in 2018, as compared to nine incidents in 2017. IMDA also took into consideration that these were repeated failures, and in some cases involved lost letters. Nevertheless, IMDA also noted that the failure margins in 2018 were generally lower on average as compared to the year before.

Meanwhile, IMDA has also completed its investigation of the case of the postman who had discarded returned mail and advertisement mails at Reflections at Keppel Bay in 2018. The postman, Liu Zhengang, was dismissed by SingPost after the incident and has returned to China. IMDA’s investigation found the postman to have breached the Postal Services Act for discarding postal articles and has issued an advisory to him.

“He will be barred from employment in Singapore and will be arrested if he returns to Singapore. IMDA reserves the right to prosecute him,” the agency said. IMDA has also issued an advisory to SingPost to remind the firm of its obligations to safeguard mail integrity and security and to train and educate its staff to perform their task properly.

Also read: SingPost enables postmen to track deliveries with mobile app

SingPost has implemented immediate measures such as hiring more postmen, extending delivery slots for basic mail parcels to weekday evenings and on Saturdays, and increasing the number of dedicated counters and staff at post offices for mail/package collection. SingPost has also pledged to conduct an overall review of its operations to improve its service standards.