Anoosh Rooplal and Juanita Damons, the business rescue practitioners for the Post Office, have blamed a scheduling conflict for missing an important Tuesday meeting with MPs.
They had been expected to address the national council of provinces’ select committee on economic development & trade, but failed to attend.
According to Rooplal, who spoke on behalf of the pair in response to questions from TechCentral, the meeting had been moved to Tuesday from another, previously agreed date, but the two already had other commitments on the new date, prompting them to send representatives to parliament on their behalf instead.
“The non-attendance by the joint business rescue practitioners was not intentional. Unfortunately, the meeting date was changed and we had other commitments. We will wait for the meeting to be rescheduled so we can attend,” said Rooplal.
Committee chair Sonja Boshoff explained in the meeting that the reason it had been moved from the previous week was so that either communications minister Solly Malatsi or his deputy, Mondli Gungubele, could be present. Boshoff said Rooplal and Damons only informed Malatsi via a letter the day before the meeting that they would not be in attendance and would send representatives in their place.
“I feel the business rescue practitioners are really shirking their responsibilities,” Boshoff said in the meeting, which Gungubele attended. “They have had since 30 November, when they were meant to present and requested a deferment, [so] they should have been ready by now. I am completely dissatisfied with their approach to our request for this meeting today.”
‘Competent to talk’
Rooplal rebutted suggestions that he and Damons were using proxies to avoid responsibility. He said the mix-up was merely a matter of timing and that the representatives they sent were “competent to talk” on their behalf.
The Post Office has been in business rescue since July 2023. Last September, Rooplal and Damons told parliament the organisation would have no alternative but to be placed into liquidation should a R3.8-billion bailout not be received by last November. These funds are yet to be allocated.
Read: Government may liberalise postal services in major review
The state-owned company’s fate looked all but sealed when national treasury excluded the proposed bailout from the medium-term budget policy outlook statement in October, with finance minister Enoch Godongwana encouraging the department of communications to “find the money” to assist the entity.
Then, in February, national treasury approved a R150-million virement intended to “assist the Post Office in addressing immediate financial pressures”. Khusela Diko, chair of parliament’s portfolio committee on communications & digital technologies, criticised the virement as too little to ensure the company’s long-term sustainability.
“The funding is too little to make a meaningful impact as it only sustains the operations of the Post Office for one additional month and does not go far enough to address the challenges facing it,” Diko said in a statement at the time.
In his response to TechCentral on Wednesday, Rooplal said the proposed R3.8-billion bailout remains critical to the success of the Post Office’s business rescue.
“No provision was made in the 2025/2026 budget for this funding. The business rescue plan is premised on receiving the R3.8-billion, which was needed to settle the second tranche of the dividend payment to creditors of 18c in the rand, for infrastructure upgrades and operational requirements,” he said. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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