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Obvious spoiler alert – it didn’t end well.

The SA Post Office (SAPO) has lost money for 14 years running, incurring losses of almost nearly R1,8 billion.

Despite receiving around R8 billion in government bailouts, it’s still a sinking ship, with the latest financial report from Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke pointing out that SAPO is commercially insolvent.

Another area of concern is SAPO’s wishes to stop courier companies from delivering packages weighing under a kilogram in South Africa, which would prevent private companies from delivering things like medicine, passports, or visas.

Per MyBroadband, SAPO argues that it’s “the only licensed provider which can deliver reserved postal services”, which includes postal articles up to a kilogram in weight.

There has been pushback from private courier services, and the DA’s shadow deputy minister of communications and digital technologies, Cameron Mackenzie, has also hit out at the idea:

[He] told Parliament the organisation cannot run a courier operation.

He highlighted that the Post Office tried it before, but it “ended up with that operation in liquidation”.

Mackenzie was referring to Courier and Freight Group (CFG), which was an operating subsidiary of the South African Post Office (SAPO).

CFG provided courier services – which ranged from overnight to seventy-two-hour delivery – and express freight products. CFG was a dismal failure. It sustained huge losses for years, including R100 million in 2015 and R115 million in 2016.

In 2016, CFG was placed under provisional liquidation, and Mackenzie alleges that it was, as with all state-owned entities, “riddled with corruption and mismanagement”.

SA Post Office spokesperson Johan Kruger responded to MyBroadband’s questions by pointing out that SAPO runs Speed Services Couriers, which he deems a successful service.

However, as Mackenzie pointed out, in many cases SAPO is unable to pay rent on its branches, or its suppliers, so the idea that it could somehow handle all packages under a kilogram seems laughable, at best.

SAPO’s court action against courier companies regarding packages under a kilogram is unlikely to be heard until 2022, but it would make for a very worrying change if successful.

At least they wouldn’t be able to tinker too much with how South Africans order goods from abroad that don’t deliver to our shores, meaning courier services like Postbox Courier wouldn’t be affected.

Postbox Courier will provide you with a quote, free of charge, which includes customs charges, VAT, and those other costs that can sometimes catch you unawares.

Once you’re paid up, the items will be delivered within three to five working days, and you won’t have to set foot inside your local post office.

Competence you can rely on, which is more than can be said for SAPO.

[source:mybb]