The deadline for the relocation of the General Post Office has again been pushed back to the third week in May.

Minister responsible, Renward Wells said at this point,  construction at the new Town Centre Mall location is 99 per cent complete.

“The executive offices are done, the Post Office boxes are done, the warehouse is completed, the air condition units are in, the electricals are installed, the cafeteria is up and running, and the Post Office Bank has been up and running. 

“Our issue is we are now having to install  the low voltage design which has to do with really the CCTV cameras and the data links. 

“So, after those wires would have been pulled by the contractor, BTC has to come in with its telephones and hook up its telephones to the requisite desks and Cable Bahamas would have to come in and run its cable lines,” he said.      

The government will foot the $70,000 bill for all new furniture along with a $130,000 high voltage design.

The update comes a few weeks after the Opposition toured the new location, at the time noting that it seemed far from complete.

 Minister Wells said since then, there’s been a complete turnaround.

“What they saw, there were aspects of the Post Office that could not be completed because we needed to have the boxes installed.  When they were here, there the boxes were still in boxes. We installed those boxes in a matter of two and a half days over a weekend. 

“So the boxes are completely installed. I saw someone who snuck into the Post Office and took a video of it,  believing they were going to find something that is untoward and what was put out to the public, the comments that was put out in social media were  very positive. Folks were surprised at what they saw,” Minister Wells said. 

As for employment, Minister Wells said the upcoming budgetary period will speak to that.

“We’re going to requisitely staff the Post Office as is a number of departments and authorities that happen to come under the Ministry of Transport, whether it’s the Port Authority, whether it’s the Road Traffic Department, whether it’s the Met Office, or whether its Local Government. 

“All of these agencies that happen to be under my remit in varying degrees are excessively understaffed and where we have some staff more than others , is areas where really we can do without, and so what we need  are  persons in the executive management and we need some line staff and we’re going to fix that,” said the Minister.   

In 2012, revenue sourced from the Post Office was around $5 or $6 million dollars.

Today, that has dropped to about $2 million. Minister Wells said they are looking to again increase that figure with a modernized Post Office.