The post office does not want to cancel other branches, but intends to transfer some of them to Partner Post Offices. And not only in the countryside, but now also in the cities.
“We are going to offer shared and private mailboxes for parcels, even for owners of family houses or apartment buildings, where they will be able to place them in the vestibules,” said Balíkovna director Lukáš Rampas at a seminar in the Chamber of Deputies.
The packing house is to be separated from the state enterprise within two years and will operate purely on a commercial basis. It will also introduce a mobile application for operating all its services. The information about the delivery of the shipment should also be specified, for a specific hour.
Česká pošta expects to reduce its operating loss to 310 million this year
Branch clients should also be able to see the new services. The Post Office plans to receive and issue parcels from other postal operators as well, or to provide money services for banks. For example, cash withdrawals where there are no ATMs.
Thanks to the post office’s advanced negotiations with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the amendment to the Social Support Act, which MPs are going to discuss in the third reading, people will be able to apply for benefits at post office branches.
The company thus takes over part of the agenda of the labor offices. It should be, for example, housing allowances or funeral allowances.
The loss will be lower, there are fewer branches
“As far as the provision of new services for the state is concerned, we are also negotiating with other ministries,” added director in charge Miroslav Štěpán. The debate is said to take time, and it is also about how much the state will pay for the new services.
There was speculation, for example, about the delivery of documents such as citizenship and driver’s licenses, couriers or the delivery of car registration plates to delivery boxes. But Štěpán did not confirm that.
However, he indicated that the post office is negotiating with the Czech Telecommunications Office so that even registered letters without delivery can be delivered to delivery points, just like packages.
Next year, the Post Office wants to continue the transfer of branches to Partner post offices, which will be operated by other entities.
In the new year, it expects to transfer 150 to 180 branches in the rural network. At the same time, according to the management, 972 rural branches are suitable for such a transfer. In some cases, the transfer will also be tied to the sale of real estate to municipalities. There are currently more than 800 partner post offices out of a total of 2,900 branches.
Newly, the post office wants to offer branches with three or four counters in cities, as well as the Partner post offices. There are approximately two hundred branches selected. However, he does not want to estimate how many of them he will eventually transfer.
Member of the opposition ANO Jana Mračková Vildumetzová criticized why the post office did not start transferring even medium-sized branches to the Partner regime a few years ago. She doesn’t like the fact that big cities could only save canceled branches in the form of Pošta Partner Plus, when they cover all costs. There are now eleven such post offices in the Czech Republic. They operate in addition to the 2,900 post offices as required by law.
In the coming years, the Post expects to sell the remaining real estate worth 4.5 billion crowns. On the other hand, he will keep the properties worth 11 billion crowns for the further operation of the state enterprise or Balíkovna.
This year, the company expects an operating loss of around 310 million crowns, roughly 630 million less than last year. The result is better than she originally expected, mainly due to extraordinary measures and savings, including the closure of three hundred branches and the extension of the delivery time of economic shipments from two to three days.
