The state-owned entity has guzzled R8.4bn in taxpayer bailouts in the past 5 years, and there’s only a 68% chance that a parcel you post will arrive where it’s meant to. Is the liquidation of the Post Office the apocalypse that government thinks it is?
But there’s little sign of this “exciting” strategy. Gungubele was due to give a briefing on the Post Office, but this hadn’t happened by the time of going to print. As it is, the Treasury has already pumped R7.3bn into the Post Office in the past few years — with little to show for it. Throw in the fact that even a R2.4bn bailout would still leave a R1.6bn hole in its balance sheet, and it’s clear there are many questions still.
Commentators have deep doubts about the viability of this “exciting and bankable strategy”, not least of which is this: which customers are going to trust a postal service that delivers parcels only 68% of the time?Money is also an issue. The new plan requires serious investment, as the Post Office reported only R46m in courier and parcel revenue in 2022 — just 1.5% of its total revenue.
In the year to March 2022, 91 branches were closed and 55 amalgamated, while it cut employees from 15,862 to 14,460 in the same financial year. That’s a steep drop from the 18,119 staff at the end of 2018.Yet, while staff costs totalled R3.4bn in 2018, they climbed to R3.6bn last year, even though headcount had fallen by a fifth. With revenue of just R3bn, you can see the problem.This cost trajectory is evident in its leases too. In 2018, it had 1,512 branches, costing R284.
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Post-apocalyptic: should the Post Office be saved?The state-owned entity has guzzled R8.4bn in taxpayer bailouts in the past five years, and there’s only a 68% chance that a parcel you post will even arrive where it’s meant to. Is the liquidation of the Post Office the apocalypse that the government thinks it is? Or is the private sector already doing all the things the Post Office once did?
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