The Ukrposhta postal company intends to upgrade its fleet significantly over the next 3-5 years by purchasing about 1,000 vehicles. This was announced in the "Infrastructure Projects in the Area of Postal Communication" section on the Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry’s web portal, the CFTS reports.
According to the announcement, 3,708 vehicles were on the books of Ukrposhta as of August 1, 2017, of which 900 are not in operation and need to be written off.
These include 219 vehicles bought by the company in 2017.
The national postal operator intends to purchase about 1,000 vehicles for operation on main and regional routes partly with its own funds and partly with loan funds. Purchase of the vehicles will require about UAH 800 million.
Ukrposhta planned to sell more than 1,000 vehicles via the ProZorro electronic public procurement system last spring.
Ukrposhta’s head Ihor Smelianskyi later blamed bureaucratic problems for the company’s inability to get rid of its vehicles that are no longer repairable but require money to keep in storage. According to him, the problem is that officials do not want to sign an act of write-off of these assets because they are afraid of complaints from the prosecutor's office.
As the CFTS reported, Ukrposhta received 19 vehicles for operation on urban and intra-regional routes in November 2017. These were Mercedes-Benz Atego 1218 vans with a carrying capacity of 9.1 tons.
The company is expected to add to its fleet 266 more vehicles for operation on main, urban, and intraregional routes, as well as for courier delivery services, over the next four months.
