Now, all the magazines that various members of my family subscribe to, are sent to the PO box address, instead of burdening my neighbourhood postman.

Even the majority of our personal correspondence and utility bills have been mailed to the PO box address.

An unexpected bonus was that, whenever we moved home, we did not have to inform too many people (locally or overseas) of the change in our mailing address. And with the free three-months forwarding service provided by the GPO, we usually did not lose contact with anyone.

A few years ago, we finally bought our own flat; for financial reasons, we used a shelf company name as the owner of the flat. This shelf company receives about two or three letters a month - monthly bank statements, monthly mortgage debit advice, quarterly government rates demand notes, half-yearly crown rent demand notes, and occasional letters from the Inland Revenue Department.

All the utility bills - gas, electricity, water, telephones, etc - are in my personal name.

I have now been informed by the PO Box Section of the GPO that the letters for the shelf company are not acceptable, because the mail is addressed to the company and the box is rented in my personal name.

I am therefore 'sharing' the box and should pay additional rental.

I do not understand the logic behind this. Here I am, trying to reduce the postman's delivery load and I have to pay extra for the privilege.

Even with in excess of 15,000 post-office boxes, there is a waiting list for people wanting a box, so it cannot be a case of the Postmaster General's staff trying to increase income by renting out vacant boxes.

Does this mean that if my wife receives any mail in her maiden name at the PO box, then we are liable to pay additional rental for supposedly sharing? From time to time, I have to write letters to several 'differently named' companies in the Hongkong Bank group, which are all addressed to GPO Box 64. Has the Postmaster General asked for additional rental for each of these companies for 'sharing' the same box? At my former employer's office, mail received through the company's post-office box, used to include many personal letters addressed to individual employees (without any indication of the company's name on the address label).

Does this mean that the individual employees were 'sharing' the box and the company had to pay additional rent? The Postmaster General has in the past complained of manpower shortages.

Why, then, has someone been assigned to the petty-minded task of checking whether the letters being put into the 15,000 plus PO boxes at the GPO are addressed only to the party renting the box? No doubt, this type of checking may be necessary for particular PO boxes when that box has recently changed hands, or when there is a re-forwarding request, but not for all regular mail.

Surely, there are more important things for postal staff to do, in order to improve the deteriorating quality of the postal service.

For example, until recently, mail for the PO boxes used to the distributed twice daily; nowadays, there is only one daily distribution.

Also, at one time, there used to be a separate mailing box at the General Post Office, specifically for mail addressed to any of the 15,000 plus GPO boxes.

Surely, this could be revived with the added incentive of a reduced local postal rate (say 90 cents instead of $1.20 for letters, if such local mail is placed in the appropriate mailing box or handed in at a particular counter on the ground floor).

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED