COSATU is deeply opposed to calls to privatise or liquidate the SAPO
4 October 2024
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is vehemently opposed to calls to privatise or liquidate the South African Post Office (SAPO). We remain deeply distressed by the unbelievable trauma that has been inflicted for years upon SAPO’s hard working staff. It is abominable that thousands of SAPO employees have been pickpocketed for years by a cruel and criminal management of their salaries, increases, pension and medical aid funds, and other third-party payments.
Despite the Federation intervening repeatedly with government and the Business Rescue Practitioners, workers have been made to the pay the price of SAPO management who failed to ensure the post office kept pace with radical technological advances in the postal sector and who all too often prioritised enriching themselves instead.
In spite of promises made by the Business Rescue Practitioners of a plan to turn SAPO around, things have gone from bad to worse with over 200 branches closed and some simply abandoned to vandalism and criminals, and up to 6 000 staff retrenched in an economy with a 42.6% unemployment rate.
Calls to privatise or liquidate SAPO must be abandoned. SAPO was once a thriving public entity until the decade of state capture and corruption. With competent management, financial relief and repositioning SAPO can once again play a leading role in the postal sector.
The 6th Parliament, led by the African National Congress, passed important progressive legislation to allow SAPO to enter the lucrative courier sector and become a one stop shop where citizens can apply for a variety of government services as well as to allow the Postbank to become a fully-fledged commercial and retail bank. If given a chance, these two critical legislative interventions will reposition SAPO and the Postbank and enable them to thrive.
It is urgent that government stave off the liquidation of SAPO and reject calls to privatise it. Treasury needs to provide SAPO the financial relief as provided for in the Budget. Government at all levels, from national to province to local, from entities to State-Owned Enterprises, need to use SAPO and the Postbank as their institutions of choice for their postal and banking services. These interventions would set SAPO and the Postbank on the path to recovery and sustainability, protect the vital role they play in disadvantaged communities and inject badly needed competition into often monopolistic sectors.
Issued by Matthew Parks, COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator, 4 October 2024
