Letter to the editor-Benefits of a postal code address system |11 September 2012

As I recall, a similar project was originally proposed by the German government in 1993 when we were drafting the constitution as a way to assist in building a credible voters’ register where each registered voter could be identified with his or her exact residency.

  Sadly, we did not take up this offer then but it is better late than never.

In this respect may I suggest that each district, which is legally only an electoral area for voting and for representation in the National Assembly, be divided into wards so that each address could be located without having to refer to a map.

 Each street name would have to carry its ward number next to it. Each ward could contain 50 to 100 households.

 This could also serve as a basis to create effective local governments to provided local services to residents, thus decentralising power away from civil servants, as well as limiting fraud in such areas as social security benefits.

Nevertheless, the project will have implications for the various secondary roads some of which have been constructed by private individuals.

As an offshore service provider the postal code will assist us immensely in the area of due diligence by bringing us to par with other countries where a residential address has both a street number and an area code, that can be identified on an electoral roll, which all financial institutions require as part of their due diligence process.

It will also resolve the dilemma for local commercial banks which have to ensure they have credible residential addresses of their customers under the anti-money laundering regulations.

Paul Chow
Fifco (Offshore) Services Ltd