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Notoriety, thy name is Foreign Post Office

SOHEL ISLAM
Parcels from abroad may never reach you because of a 'black hole' created by a set of dishonest employees at Dhaka Foreign Post Office.
The employees are blamed for stealing, selling or tampering with the parcels. Heaps of packages are waiting in the storeroom of the post-office to be delivered, but many of them -- it is alleged -- are never delivered to their addressees.
Worse happens when some post-office employees sell the undelivered packages in the market.
"One and a half months back, my friend sent me a parcel from Canada, but I did not get it. I tried to retrieve it, but to no avail," said Shamim Khan, a businessman.
"I have heard many cases of such misappropriation. It has long been happening, but I don't understand why the authorities don't take stringent action against the guilty," Shamim said.
A postal official, requesting anonymity, said: "The other day, a man from Tangail lodged a complaint about missing blankets and towels. Interestingly, when the customs officials opened his parcel in his presence in Dhaka, the contents were in the package. But he found one blanket and two towels missing, when the package was delivered in Tangail."
According to the normal postal procedure, if parcels come from abroad, the customs officials call the addressees to the foreign post-office in Dhaka to open the packages in front of them to check whether or not the contents are taxable.
But the packages are not delivered straight from the Dhaka post-office and are sent to the addressees' local post-offices for delivery.
Although the complaints about missing parcels are lodged with the post office regularly, the authorities would not disclose the figure of such cases, terming it a departmental secret.
"We know the misappropriation of con-
tents but cannot give information to journalists as the service rule prohibits us from doing so," said Mujibar Rahman, director-general of Bangladesh Post Office.
"We always take action against the employees for dishonesty in line with the Universal Postal Union. Many have lost their jobs. In most cases, we realise compensations from the dishonest employees," Rahman claimed.
Missing parcels apart, unscrupulous officials are delivering money orders late to the addressees after using the money for their purposes.
"I regularly send money to my parents who live in a district town. I preferred GEP
(Granted Express Post) to normal mailing, as the postal officials assured me that it would be delivered in 24 hours. The post-office charged me more fees for that. But it reached in no less than five days," said computer engineer Liton Ahmed.
Rahman refuted the allegations, saying this happens in village post-offices, saying: "The delay cannot happen in district towns. Even if it happened it may be that the postmen didn't find the proper addresses easily."
"A few months ago, I received such complaints from Mymensingh. After investigations, we found an employee guilty and he was immediately terminated," Rahman recalled.