Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 13, 2023 (SKNIS): The Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis successfully lobbied the Caribbean Community to vote for favorable terms with respect to posts in developing countries at the 4th Extraordinary Congress of the Universal Postal Union in Saudi Arabia last week.
This was stated by the Minister of Post, the Honourable Konris Maynard, during his appearance on the radio and television show ‘In Focus’ on October 11.
He said, “It was important to be there especially as a Caribbean country because one of the things that these congresses point out is how much strength we actually have as Caribbean nations.”
He added that the Caribbean as a collective has multiple votes but major countries such as the United States of America and the United Kingdom have one vote.
“And so, when we work together, we are able to collaborate and lobby to vote for and against [policy decisions],” said Minister Maynard.
“There were some issues that we saw the importance of the Caribbean and other developing nations together, and prevented some of the things that would have happened at that congress,” he said.
Some of the decisions the Federation voted on were “Decisions on how the operators are to fashion themselves to take advantage of digital trends and how they will adopt their operations to keep up to date.”
He added that there was also a vote to include other countries to be involved in the Universal Postal Union.
Another important vote that took place encompassed the climate discussion. “We are going to have to make sure that all of our operations are in line with a greener future.”
He also said that another critical issue that was voted on was the freedom of transit. “In the postal sector, freedom of transit basically means that if I send a package from St. Kitts to France, on its way, anyone who touches it must not do anything to inhibit it from reaching where it needs to go because that is the spirit of the connection of posts.”
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