Only private investment will save the Post Office from extinction

10 March 2022

The South African Post Office (SAPO) revealed a net loss of R591 million for the second quarter of the 2021/22 financial year, during its financial report presentation to the parliamentary portfolio committee of digital communications this week.

In addition, it owes the Post Bank R2.2 billion.

Even more worrying is the increase in the number of crimes from 569 to 1 818. These incidents, mostly burglaries and theft, amounted to a loss of R62 million.

This comes hot on the heels of a reply to a DA parliamentary question revealing that the Post Office owed its suppliers almost half a billion rands.

While the ANC government has an unhealthy resistance to any private takeover of state entities, it cannot continue to hold on to the Post Office for sentimentalism. It has become clear the SAPO has an urgent need for private sector investment to save it from collapse beyond resuscitation.

It makes no sense whatsoever for the ANC government to persist with full ownership of the Post Office while it has consistently proven incapable of being profitable to fulfill its basic mandate of delivering sustainable and reliable postal services to the public.

Given the historic unprofitability, inefficiency, and ongoing decay of the Post Office, no amount of nostalgic state control nor recycled bureaucratic turnaround strategy will transform the entity into a modern, functional and reliable postal services that will regain the public’s trust as it’s postal services of choice.

The DA will continue to leverage every parliamentary recourse to advocate for the partial sale of the Post Office to the private sector to save millions of rands on bailouts and return the entity to its previous efficiency.

Issued by Solly Malatsi, DA Shadow Minister of Communications, 10 March 2022