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Telkom has announced that account payment options for their customers will no longer include the South African Post Office. We just hope they don’t deliver the news via ordinary mail otherwise SAPO will only find out in about a decade. Give or take a regime.

The partially state-owned telecommunications company said ditching the fully state-owned post office “aims to streamline payment processes” for customers. Because you know, institutionalised kak service.

The change will have a negative effect on customers that still use the no-mail carrier as a payment channel, but to be honest, the negative experiences of people using anything to do with the state are not really much of a concern to the state.

Telkom consumer operations managing executive Albertus Venter said however that they ‘remain committed to offering our customers simple and convenient options to settle their accounts.’

“We encourage our customers to explore alternative payment channels, such as direct EFT payments through their banks. They can also contact our customer service call centre at 10210 and sign up for a debit order, a hassle-free method to ensure seamless settlement of monthly accounts.”

Don’t worry Mzansi, there will always be a workable way to pay your bills. Always.

The Post Office is in dire financial straits and was placed in provisional liquidation earlier this year. Communications minister Mondli Gungubele said government would do everything it could to save the ailing entity. This might include hiring a string quartet to entertain the ministers as they don’t go down with the ship.

“Government has over the years embarked on several interventions to get the SA Post Office back on track,” Gungubele said in a recent Parliamentary debate.

“These include a total of R7.3 billion cash injection between 2016 and 2019, partnerships with [the State IT Agency] and Postbank on infrastructure development and sourcing of expertise from the private sector.”

Well hell, seems like it worked really well. The good news is that taxpayers are not done paying yet, as government has budgeted another R2.4 billion bailout for the Post Office this year. In the meantime, SAPO is still trying to retain a monopoly on packages under 1kg, which is being battled out in court.

“In fact, we are currently in court because there are other unregistered players encroaching in that space to the detriment of the SA Post Office.”

These ‘unregistered players’ are basically the only people that allow Mzansi to send a package without it being stolen or getting lost in the great SAPO oblivion. They also don’t need constant bailouts from taxpayers.

The Post Office has also applied to overturn its provisional liquidation and be placed under business rescue instead. This would allow the Post Office to pause repayments on outstanding debts, buying time to negotiate with creditors to avoid going out of business. Going out of business? You are out of business and seem to be the only ones that don’t believe it.

Among the bills the Post Office has not paid are fees for the staff medical aid scheme, Medipos, and pension fund contributions. Basically, everything that employees rely upon.

Our crystal ball is rather murky lately but we predict a few more bailouts and then death to the SA Post Service. Perhaps afterward they could convert the old post office buildings into monuments to an institution that worked at some point, but is now just pointless and riddled with corruption and incompetence.

Just like they did at Luthuli House.

[source:mybroadband]