Post Office staff to get 40% pay cut while CEO earns R4 million
The South African Post Office (Sapo) is planning to slash staff salaries by as much as 40% from February 2023 while the CEO earns close to R4 million a year, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has said, citing a reliable source.
The pay cuts will go ahead despite Sapo deducting staff medical aid and pension contributions without paying them to the respective providers.
Although Post Office management promised the Parliamentary Communications Portfolio Committee to turn things around, the DA said medical aid benefits have again been withdrawn from staff and pensioners due to non-payment.
“We have also learnt that the current CEO today earns nearly R4 million per year, almost twice as much as her predecessor did in 2020,” said DA communications spokesperson Dianne Kohler Barnard.
“The CEO earns R3.9 million, and the non-executive board members also live in the lap of luxury with a collective annual amount of R2.7 million,” Kohler Barnard said.
She added that Sapo has already incurred a loss of R2.3 billion this year and still owes Post Bank R3.2 billion.
Sapo management has proposed implementing a two-day weekly work reduction, effectively reducing weekly working hours — and staff wages — by 40%.
The DA has promised that if the move to cut working hours and salaries gets the go-ahead, it will report the matter to the Public Protector, the CCMA, and the Department of Labour.
Sapo’s non-payment of medical aid and pension contributions has been an issue for some time.
In September 2021, around 15,000 Sapo workers were at risk of losing their medical aid coverage with Medipos due to their employer’s failure to pay R602 million in member contributions.
Shortly after the news broke, trade union Solidarity revealed that it would bring an urgent court application against Sapo for failing to pay the contributions.
Sapo asked for a government bailout to help it pay the medical aid and pension contributions.
The issue was raised again in September 2022, when the Post Office’s repeated failure to pay Medipos resulted in its human resources department advising staff to take out their own medical cover.
Sapo CEO Nomkhita Mona later revealed the Post Office was subsidising the government’s R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grants, further contributing to its inability to pay medical aid and pension contributions.
Mona said the Post Office subsidises half of the costs associated with paying the grants.
“I don’t know how many South Africans know this, [but] the Post Office has been subsidising the government in the delivery of the [SRD] grants,” she said.
“Our cost of delivering that service over the counter is just over R30. What we were being paid by Sassa was R15. Nobody runs a business like that.”
Update: The Post Office has responded to the DA’s statement, detailing its cost-cutting plan and refuting specific claims about Medipos and Mona’s salary compared to that of former CEO Mark Barnes.
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