Post Office will add many new services
THE South African Post Office says its biggest challenge in the future is to sustain profitability and to strengthen the public perception of the parastatal as a "trusted branda".
Boasting a 112% rise in operating profit to R286,8m for the year ended March, the Post Office says it aims to expand its core business of mail delivery by up to 15% a year over the next five years. Mail volumes, buoyed by a growing economy, grew 8% in the 2005-06 financial year.
Although mail volumes are stagnating globally, mainly due to tough competition from e-mail, Post Office CEO Khutso Mampeule says there is room for growth in SA.
Mampeule says SA has very low mail volumes per head compared to other developing countries such as Brazil and Thailand.
For example, local households receive 35 letters a month compared to 54 in Brazil. In the developed world, most homes receive at least 450 letters a month.
"The standard of living of our customers is improving and this means that (the volume of) their mail will increase in the short term," says Mampeule.
In a bid to meet its universal service obligation of servicing all areas while increasing mail volumes at the same time, the Post Office says it will build 27 new post office outlets and install 20 additional portable outlets.
About R529m will be spent in the current financial year on infrastructure investment.
Last year the company spent R393m to build 28 post office outlets and to furnish them with the latest technology. The new outlets will also enable the Post Office to enter into a lucrative business deal with government.
This arrangement will see certain government departments allowing the Post Office to provide facilities for people to register their vehicles, renew their driver’s licences, pay traffic fines and collect social grants.
The Post Office says it is also in a position to distribute textbooks, exam papers and teachers’ pay slips in rural areas.
It said it was in discussion with the home affairs and health departments for the distribution of passports, work permits, birth and death certificates and some medicines.
Mampeule says government currently contributes only 1% of the Post Officea??s income.
"The aggressive growth in government services provision could potentially increase our operating profit by R50m," he says.
The Post Office has a network of more than 2550 branches throughout the country.
Through this network, larger than those of all four major South African banks put together, it has been able to register 848 784 new Mzansi accounts.
Through its savings division Postbank, the Post Office now has about 3,8-million account holders, who, together, own R2,3bn in savings.
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