The Postal Corporation of Kenya (Posta) is commercialising its idle assets to reduce its reliance on state funding, The Star reported. The corporation was placed under the National Treasury last year. It says commercialising underused assets and reviewing tariffs helped drive 10 percent financial growth in the year ended June 2025.
Chief executive and Postmaster General John Tonui said the asset optimisation programme is part of a wider turnaround strategy. The plan aims to make the business financially self-sustaining. Tonui said the strategy rests on postal modernisation, the PostaPay digital wallet and asset optimisation. He said the plan is tied to the Universal Postal Union's Dubai Strategy 2026-2029, which 192 member countries have adopted.
Posta is betting on parcels. According to Tonui, domestic and international parcels rose to 1.48 million in the 2024/25 financial year, up from 137,764 in the previous reporting period. Domestic letters grew 19.5 percent to 174,057. The Universal Postal Union's State of the Postal Sector Report 2026 shows that global letter volumes fell 67 percent between 2019 and 2024. Over the same period, parcel volumes rose nearly tenfold.
The corporation is converting more than 500 outlets into communication centres and Citizen Service Centres. The aim is a bigger role in courier services, e-commerce logistics and public service delivery. Posta has also introduced MPost, which lets customers use their mobile numbers as virtual postal addresses. The service also offers virtual post office boxes and door-to-door deliveries.
PostaPay targets unbanked farmers and small businesses and allows transactions of up to KSh 2 million. Tonui said the wallet charges lower fees. The new revenue streams are expected to complement income from property and postal services. Tonui said that as a government-owned enterprise, Posta will not depend on the Exchequer for revenue.
Tonui spoke ahead of a meeting of global postal regulators and operators in Berne, Switzerland. Separately, the Communications Authority of Kenya is reviewing the structure of the postal market. Director-general David Mugonyi said the regulator is raising courier licence fees from KSh 50,000 to KSh 1.5 million. It is also cutting licence tenure from 20 to 15 years to deal with inactive operators.