Akash Sama­roo

A postal code is some­thing com­mon in for­eign ju­ris­dic­tions, but it may still be for­eign to cit­i­zens of this coun­try.

So, when peo­ple re­ceived their postal code cards from their re­spec­tive re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, many al­so no­ticed a change in ad­dress.

And with that comes a se­ries of ques­tions; do I have to in­form the util­i­ty com­pa­nies? Do I have to up­date my dri­ver’s per­mit? Will this af­fect my deed of own­er­ship for my prop­er­ty? Well, there isn’t one an­swer for all.

But let’s ex­plain the ra­tio­nale for postal codes.

Act­ing man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of TTPost George Alex­is said the postal code ini­tia­tive, which is be­ing im­ple­ment­ed in a phased ba­sis since 2012, seeks to stan­dard­ise ad­dress­es in com­pli­ance with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice. What it al­so does is give home own­ers a spe­cif­ic mail­ing ad­dress.

“In Trinidad you may have a num­ber, light pole 586 and you may have five to six hous­es us­ing that same num­ber and ad­dress, this brings a lev­el of con­for­mi­ty to in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice in how ad­dress­es are laid out to the pub­lic.”

Chair­man of TTPost Eu­la Rogers said this can al­so help first re­spon­ders ze­ro in on a lo­ca­tion as now each house will have a spe­cif­ic ad­dress.

But for those who al­ready had spe­cif­ic ad­dress­es, they may see that it has now changed. For ex­am­ple, if you lived at 12 Smith Street, you may now see your new ad­dress as 19 Smith Street.

Both Alex­is and Rogers are sug­gest­ing that as you get your up­dat­ed ad­dress and postal code, you up­date that in­for­ma­tion, at least with your util­i­ty com­pa­nies and banks.

“So, you have your mail com­ing in from WASA, T&TEC or your in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, there is an oblig­a­tion to up­date those ad­dress­es, we’re work­ing on a mech­a­nism to up­date the in­for­ma­tion with­out hav­ing to go to the util­i­ties,” said Alex­is.

That pro­posed mech­a­nism is an on­line por­tal but ac­cord­ing to Alex­is, un­for­tu­nate­ly that is not yet up and run­ning.

Some of these changes will come with a cost.

For ex­am­ple, to change your dri­ver’s per­mit. TTPost is again sug­gest­ing that you up­date the per­mit giv­en that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to roll out its ini­tia­tive to mail traf­fic tick­ets.

How­ev­er, it says if the DP is close to its ex­piry date, then the hold­er should wait till then to re­new and up­date the in­for­ma­tion.

Guardian Me­dia asked about those with years left on their ex­ist­ing per­mit and were told that in­for­ma­tion still need­ed to be sort­ed out with the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion.

Sim­i­lar clar­i­ty is need­ed for the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion. Rogers said the change in ad­dress does not af­fect where you vote as elec­toral bound­aries were not al­tered. But what about the mail­ing of polling cards? Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer, Fern Nar­cis Scope who said a meet­ing with TTPost on that very mat­ter will take place to­day.

How­ev­er, one of the biggest ques­tions is, will this af­fect my deed of own­er­ship?

“No No it does not, this is a mail­ing ad­dress we keep stress­ing that,” said Rogers.

There still ap­pears to be some de­tails to iron out, as some peo­ple have re­port­ed re­ceiv­ing more than one postal code card with dif­fer­ent ad­dress­es.

TTPost says this process has not been com­plet­ed and it ex­pects there will be some is­sues. It is ask­ing cit­i­zens to come for­ward with those prob­lems. It hopes that in 4 to 6 months, every­one will have their postal code and up­dat­ed ad­dress. Un­til then it is strong­ly ad­vis­ing those in re­ceipt of cards to up­date their in­for­ma­tion as that in­for­ma­tion is now their new mail­ing ad­dress go­ing for­ward.