The Seychelles Postal Service, in search of community representatives to assist with mail delivery, has embarked on a recruitment drive to get people to work on a part-time basis.

The deputy chief executive of the Seychelles Postal Service, Alex Etienne, explained that this move is aimed at tackling the lack of staff to deliver mails on Mahe – the main island.

“Currently, there are only 16 employees involved with mail delivery at the central post office here in Victoria. In addition, there are eight based at the southern post office at Anse Royale,” explained Etienne.

The post also has offices on Praslin and La Digue – the second- and third-most populated islands of the western Indian Ocean archipelago. Nine people – including two on La Digue - are employed there, to deliver mails.

Delivering mails in Seychelles is challenging due to the topography of the islands. The work is physically demanding with steep trails where there is no motor access. Coupled with the heat, dogs are also a menace faced by these workers.

In addition, roads are not named except for those in the capital city and recently built housing estates. House numbers are also a challenge with most of the around 30,000 households having no identification.

It is only on the manmade island of Perseverance that all houses have numbers facilitating the process of delivering mails.

“Worldwide there is a tendency to see a decrease in the mails. These are those that get delivered to your doors. However for Seychelles this is not the case,” said Etienne.

According to Etienne, bills are the bulk of mails which are delivered. As the workload increases with the work not attracting newcomers, the postal service is now turning to members of the community to assist with mail delivery.

“We are hoping that we can recruit others to be our community representatives to deliver mails in the community. Besides, they know their community better than us,” said Etienne.

The postal services are seeking people who have clean police records, and who will have to abide by postal regulations. They will be working for two hours, three times a week. They will be expected to be delivering mails between eight in the morning and six in the evening.

The community representatives are expected to earn $220 or more per month depending on the number of mails delivered.

The community members will be working in the central and north region of Mahe. Perseverance as a new residential area is a major challenge with over 1,500 houses.

“Beau Vallon - a highly dense and touristic area - is another big challenge where members of the community will be needed,” said Etienne, who added that part-timers will not be needed for the southern and western part of the main island.

The Seychelles Postal Services is also looking at ways to minimise the number of mails that need to be delivered. These include the use of new software, delivering all mails to one's workplace as most people work in Victoria. 

Another possibility is with permission of the recipient, the document is opened and scanned where the client receives a soft copy and the hard copy is then destroyed by the post office.