Jamaica Post is being repositioned as a Government Service Centre

Jamaica Post is being repositioned as a government service centre to improve access for citizens with its approximately 400 postal points islandwide.

Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Efficiency, Innovation and Digital Transformation, Ambassador Audrey Marks, made the disclosure while addressing the Universal Postal Union (UPU) 2026 to 2029 Operational Readiness for E-Commerce (ORE Plus) kick-off workshop at  Central Sorting Office, 6-10 South Camp Road, Kingston. 

She argued that Jamaica Post sits at the centre of that agenda, “not at the edge of it, because you have 400 postal points here in Jamaica…That is a deeper reach than any bank, any tax office, or any agency in the country.”

Ambassador Marks announced that several postal locations will also be fitted out to deliver civil registration and national ID along with postal services and that the express mail service is being expanded, moving from 66 locations to 100 locations in the current financial year and 150 by 2027/28. 

For Minister Marks, “…every single constituency has at least two post offices that offer this service. We are placing connectivity and public Wi-Fi in rural post offices because a digital government is worth nothing to a citizen with no signal. More access, more opportunities, more efficiency for all people is my mandate.” 

SPEED coming to Jamaica Post

Furthermore, the Minister declared that the Government remains focused on ensuring Jamaicans benefit from fast and efficient services through the Streamlining Processes for Efficiency and Economic Development (SPEED). 

The Minister emphasised that with the aid of the Inter-American Development Bank, “we expect this pilot to start this year with Jamaica Post facilitating government service centres around the island.” She said 108 post offices damaged by Hurricane Beryl and later by Hurricane Melissa are being rebuilt, pointing out that “restoration is on the way.” 

According to her, “the Government’s agenda… is captured in one word, SPEED – Streamlining Process for Efficiency and Economic Development. Over this past year we were able to implement full electronic signatures, and that is accepted all across government and more and more in the private sector. We have implemented a data-exchange platform, so that information given once is never demanded twice; a national identification card that unlocks services; a digital wallet for documents.”

These, she pointed out are just a few of the initiatives that the administration has started to roll out, and much more to come. Meanwhile, she urged the participants over the three days of the workshop to collaborate as much as possible so that the Caribbean can fully benefit from the global e-commerce market.

Call for harmonising systems

“Resist the temptation to build 14 slightly different systems….Where we can harmonise a customs data standard, harmonise it. Where we can share a platform rather than procure 14, share it. Where one of us has already solved something, do not let the next one pay to solve it again because the alternative is that global e-commerce remains something that happens in the Caribbean rather than something the Caribbean participates in,” Ambassador Marks said.

The workshop brought together approximately 25 international participants from postal administrations across the Caribbean as well as UPU officials. During the workshop, participants will receive technical training designed to strengthen operational efficiency across the postal sector, while preparing Caribbean member countries for the UPU’s new remuneration framework for the 2026-2029 cycle.

ORE Plus is the successor to the UPU’s Operational Readiness for E-Commerce Development (ORE 3) project, which was implemented in the 2022-25 cycle to strengthen postal operators’ operational processes and information technology systems in support of the growing global e-commerce market.