PPPs with the Post Office may prove more difficult that expected

Daniel Puchert

Daniel Puchert

Journalist
Staff member
Joined
Mar 6, 2024
Messages
2,401
Reaction score
2,222
Trouble for the Post Office

Communication Minister Solly Malatsi has said that it is no longer sustainable for the state to be the sole owner of the South African Post Office (Sapo) and that a public-private partnership (PPP) is the only way to save it from bankruptcy.

However, one company has warned that this is much harder than it may seem.
 
Shame, we have a solution. Close down and sell all your assets. Pay retrenchment packages with that money and your outstanding bills and case closed.
 
The Post Office is no longer relevant to me. No street delivery in my area, PO boxes in our area have all been abandoned, 3 local Post Offices have shut down, nearest one is 20km away and I'm not sure why it's even still open because there's just tumbleweeds when you go past there. SAPO is like a corpse that's being carried around by a bunch of people pretending that it's still alive despite it stinking to high heaven.
 
“The preferred outcome is for Sapo to get back on its feet by regaining the public’s trust, including public entities.....”

Jirre ouens, read the room.
You have a better chance of resurrecting Mandela than you have of ever resuscitating this corpse.
This SAPO thing died in people's minds and neighbourhoods a long time ago....

The only time you see that logo is when it's in the news.
 
RaptorSA said:
“The preferred outcome is for Sapo to get back on its feet by regaining the public’s trust, including public entities.....”

Jirre ouens, read the room.
You have a better chance of resurrecting Mandela than you have of ever resuscitating this corpse.
This SAPO thing died in people's minds and neighbourhoods a long time ago....

The only time you see that logo is when it's in the news.
Click to expand...

Weekend at Bernie's.
 
deweyzeph said:
Weekend at Bernie's.
Click to expand...

It was even worse than a propped-up death.

The last time I gave SAPO "services" any consideration was when I decided to abandon about a grand's worth of stuff that -supposedly- finally arrived at one of their branches.

The creatures they had working there during their final death spasms were a breed of S'Efrrikan that made the average Home Affairs official look like a personalized butler service.

The idea to abandon the goos made perfect sense, because there's a reptilian primal part of the human brain that kicks in once you're pushed beyond a certain limit, and that reaction is what gets you posted on social media and destroys your life. so the risk assessment was pretty simple.

To think that in the early 90's even a small town's Post Office was so well-run, clean and efficient that we'd have school trips there.
 
Last edited:
However, negotiations never took place, and Gilmour said there was no sense of a collective effort to improve the entity’s economic position.
Click to expand...
Because there's no potential for plundering or they didn't see any potential for plundering. I mean heaven forbid that a government agency run efficiently.
 
That bra who was the SAPO CEO proposed this years ago. He said SAPO would be in this exact situation it’s in now and he had a way to mitigate by private partnerships.
 
HumanShield said:
Because there's no potential for plundering or they didn't see any potential for plundering. I mean heaven forbid that a government agency run efficiently.
Click to expand...

To be fair, postal systems all over the world are staring bankruptcy in the face. In the UK and US they are also having massive problems trying to prop up their postal systems. In a way South Africa is showing the world that you don't actually need a functioning postal system.
 
Let the post office do what they want while they waltz directly into bankruptcy.

Nobody actually cares about the post office anymore or any of the services that they don't provide.
 
clickingbuttons said:
Let the post office do what they want while they waltz directly into bankruptcy.

Nobody actually cares about the post office anymore or any of the services that they don't provide.
Click to expand...

It's also much better this way.
There was this awkward window period where the Post Office was still seen by some international e-commerce companies as a viable entity to route packages through.

I don't know if anyone else did this, but I had to do it multiple times:
I had to take a half-day off work when a package arrived so I could drive all the way and intercept it at the OR Tambo loading bays (there was tucked away airport post off branch, in the middle of nowhere)... you had to do that because if you missed the window and that package diseappers onto the lorry to the Witspos hub you are in no-man's land.

It also means you couldn't buy small or cheaper stuff overseas, you had to load up properly on your order and hope to hell you can intercept it... that made the whole experience and stress 10 times worse, especially if the SAPO tracking site API's went down and you had to sit and hit refresh 500 times a day to make sure you don't miss your gap.

Also: You had NO IDEA what the import taxes were going to be and they were all over the place, so you had to carry stacks of cash to be sure (zero credit card ability at the branch, of course)
 
Last edited:
RaptorSA said:
It's also much better this way.
There was this awkward window period where the Post Office was still seen by some international e-commerce companies as a viable entity to route packages through.

I don't know if anyone else did this, but I had to do it multiple times:
I had to take a half-day off work when a package arrived so I could intercept it at the OR Tambo loading bays (there was tucked away airport post off branch, in the middle of nowhere)... you had to do that because if you missed the window and that package diseappers onto the lorry to the Witspos hub you are in no-man's land.
Click to expand...

I still double-check when I order something online from overseas that they don't send it through the postal system, much to their amusement. If there's any doubt I simply won't order from the site.
 
deweyzeph said:
I still double-check when I order something online from overseas that they don't send it through the postal system, much to their amusement. If there's any doubt I simply won't order from the site.
Click to expand...

100% still a thing for me too. Damn annoying.
I even did a Amazon.com order "experiment" once to be sure they don't use these irrelevant cretins.
 
deweyzeph said:
To be fair, postal systems all over the world are staring bankruptcy in the face. In the UK and US they are also having massive problems trying to prop up their postal systems. In a way South Africa is showing the world that you don't actually need a functioning postal system.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. Despite the difficulties though. The royal mail and Deutche Post work very well. I mean the people in the UK have this weird obsession with the Royal Mail
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter