SingPost fined record $300,000 for failing to meet delivery standards in 2018
National postal agency SingPost has been fined a record $300,000 by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) for failing to meet the postal Quality of Service (QoS) standards of mail delivery in 2018.
The fine is triple the $100,000 penalty SingPost received in February for failing to meet regulatory standards in 2017.
In a statement released on Friday (29 March), IMDA said that SingPost is required under its postal QoS framework to deliver 99 per cent of local basic letters to an address within the Central Business District (CBD) and 98 per cent of local basic letters to destinations outside the CBD by the next working day. SingPost failed to meet those standard in four months of 2018.
Furthermore, the QoS framework requires SingPost to achieve 100-per-cent delivery of local basic letters and registered basic letters by the second working day. SingPost did not deliver all of its local basic letters by the second working day in nine of the months in 2018, and registered basic letters in four of the months.
Finally, SingPost is required to deliver 99 per cent of international incoming basic letters received before 3pm to a CBD address by the next working day. It failed to meet this requirement in three of the months in 2018.
IMDA said that, in assessing the penalties, it took into account that SingPost had 20 incidents of non-compliance in 2018, compared with just nine incidents in 2017. It also took into consideration that these incidents were repeated failures, and in some cases involved lost letters.
It said in its media statement, “IMDA takes a very serious view of any lapses in SingPost’s mail services, and has directed SingPost to take urgent steps to improve its service standards and restore public confidence in its postal services.”
SingPost conducting review of postal operations
According to The Straits Times, SingPost said it accepts the financial penalty, and is conducting a “comprehensive and fundamental review” of its postal operations, in addition to recent measures such as hiring more postmen and extending delivery slots for basic mail parcels to weekday evenings and on Saturdays.
The review will include the use of new technologies to raise reliability and service standards.
Separately, IMDA has completed its investigations of the case of a postman who had discarded returned mail and advertisement mails at Reflections at Keppel Bay in 2018. The postman involved, 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. It added that Liu will be barred from employment in Singapore and will be arrested if he returns to Singapore.
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SingPost to improve service standards after being fined $100k for lapses
