Post office delivers something – salaries
THE SA Post Office (Sapo) was able to pay salaries yesterday – only thanks to a lastgasp assurance from the Treasury that it would back up a R220 million overdraft facility with the bank – which had wanted to freeze its account, even as the post office sinks deeper into the red amid a crippling strike now into its third month.
The strike has already cost a total of R75.74m in lost revenue and damages from bombings, arson, vandalism and theft, for which insurance claims stand at R4.4m so far, according to a presentation to Parliament’s telecommunications and postal services oversight committee.
The bad news for South Africans relying on the service for the delivery of chronic medication, distance learning materials, subscription magazines or just letters from their loved ones, is that there is no end in sight to the unprotected strike, which has been marked by intimidation and attacks on post offices.
According to Sapo general manager of public affairs Andrew Nongogo, it now has a “mountain of mail” and will have to work overtime and weekends to clear it once the strike is over.
Telecommunications and Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele told MPs during a special hearing on the crisis in Parliament that even diplomats were complaining over undelivered mail.
The Communications Workers Union – one of three representing post office workers – said this week that its final demand was for an immediate 7.5 percent increase, backdated to April 1, followed by another 0.5 percent increase from next January and 8 percent plus inflation for the following year, along with the conversion of all casual workers to permanent employees within a year and four months.
Cwele and MPs told union leaders sitting in on the meeting yesterday that it should be clear that since the post office was struggling to pay salaries now, an increase was out of the question and jobs would almost certainly be lost.
In the meantime, chief executive officer Chris Hlekane has been placed on precautionary suspension pending an investigation into irregular expenditure amounting to R95.4 million for the current financial year, which brings total irregular expenditure to R212.8m.
The bulk of this, R157.4m, relates to a lease for office space in Centurion which the post office occupied despite already having offices in Pretoria.
President Jacob Zuma authorised a Special Investigating Unit probe into irregularities at Sapo in February.
MPs have slammed the board and management for failing to adapt Sapo’s business model despite it being obvious for years that a combination of falling revenue from mail, and the withdrawal of the subsidy, would inevitably lead to a crisis.
They accused Sapo of banking on a government bailout – which is now under discussion, and also at the union leadership for allowing acts of intimidation and vandalism.