New CEO confident about changing post office’s future

THE newly appointed South African Post Office Group chief executive, Nomkhita Mona, is determined to implement a turnaround strategy.

Mona said the post office’s challenges had existed for years.

Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke recently revealed that, for the financial year 2019/20, the Post Office Group incurred losses of more than R1.7 billion while its liabilities were in excess of its assets that were worth R1.5bn. The group incurred irregular expenditure of more than R200 million. Wasteful expenditure exceeded R26m.

Mona said she had taken note of Maluleke’s report. “Indeed, SA Post Office’s major challenges in the recent past, are well documented,” said Mona.

She said the challenging issues were the result of many factors, among them an obsolete business model. The problems were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“SA Post Office has a dual mandate: fulfilling the accessibility needs, which carry a largely non-profit motive, while at the same time having to navigate the economic environment, to ensure its own survival and sustainability.”

Mona said she had spent most of past week engaging with the Communications and Digital Technologies Ministry, the board, the executive committee and labour unions.

She said the engagements had focused on the opportunities that the SA Post Office could tap into, to turn its fortunes around.

“We continue to engage SA Post Office’s creditors to acknowledge our indebtedness and willingness to honour the commitments. Equally, debt collection is a focus area.”

Mona said Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams was appointing a team of turn-around experts. The team would work with the board and the executive team to develop a plan. “We welcome this process.” Mona said, in the long term, they were confident they had the opportunity to build a world-class, commercially viable postal service that did not rely heavily on the national fiscus.

“However, in the short to medium term, we fully expect that the national government will support SA Post Office’s efforts in dealing with these legacy issues.”