80% of calls to the Post Office go unanswered

22 January 2023

Note to Editors: Find attached a soundbite from the DA Shadow Minister of Communications, Dianne Kohler Barnard MP

The DA conducted a project where we called a sample of 300 Post Offices nationwide. Our research revealed that a whopping 80% of Post Offices nationwide do not answer their phones. Furthermore, many of them don’t even have working telephone lines.

This should not come as a surprise, as the general public has for years been unimpressed and angry at the lack of service delivery at the South African Post Office.

When we tried calling both the Head office and Customer Service Centre, as part of our 25% sample, both calls were equally unsuccessful.

This comes just days after it was announced that the SAPO is proposing to cut their employees’ work week by two days, which would ultimately mean that their employees get paid 40% less. This reduction in work would surely only worsen service delivery at the SAPO.

Furthermore, the SAPO annual report indicates that only about 68% of mail actually gets delivered, 146 branches closed in the span of one year, and the logistics fleet has reduced from 1 236 to 366 vehicles.

Permanent staff numbers have reduced from 15 826 to 14 460 and employee satisfaction level stands at a disappointing 42%.

All of the above have no doubt worsened since the annual report came out last year October. In the words of the current R4-million per annum CEO, “The state-owned company has been in a downward spiral since 2004 when it last posted a profit…”

SAPO has become one of the biggest failed State-owned entities and the taxpayer has now been wasting money on this corrupt and incapable SOE for almost 20 years.

As it stands, SAPO is crumbling, service delivery at SAPO is almost non-existent and tax payer’s monies are being flushed down the drain.

Issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard, DA Shadow Minister of Communications, 23 January 2023