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Telecommunications: Tanzania's new postal system launched in Arusha

A new system of addresses and postal codes covering the whole of Tanzania was officially launched on 18 January to replace the old PO box system centred on local post offices.

Within the next five years businesses and private residences will have direct deliveries of their mail instead of having to go to the local post office to collect their correspondence from numbered PO boxes.

The new system was launched at the three day conference in Arusha to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the Pan African Postal Union (PAPU). The organization was set up in Arusha on 18 January 1980 as a special agency of the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

Tanzania’s new postal system, which involves data-basing all streets and house numbers and giving each ward or locality its own five digit postcode, has been on trial in Arusha for the last two years. It will now be phased in across the country during the next five years. The first phase up to 2011 will cover municipalities, towns and district headquarters; the second longer phase will involve rural areas and unofficial urban settlements.

At present there are nearly 200,000 PO boxes based at 500 post offices in Tanzania for a population of about 40 million.

The cost of the new country-wide scheme was estimated at around Sh.18 billion when the experimental stage started two years ago, but the minister for communications, science and technology has said that the final cost is likely to be higher.

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