Communications minister Mondli Gungubele has extended the exclusivity period the Post Office has over the delivery of sub-1kg parcels for another year – to 1 April 2025.
According to a notice published in the Government Gazette on Monday, these “reserved postal services” include the “delivery of all letters, postcards, printed matter, small parcels and other postal articles subject to the mass size limitations”. These limitations are:
- Length: 456mm
- Width: 324mm
- Thickness: 100mm
- Cylinders having a maximum length of 458mm and 100mm thickness and a mass of up to 1kg are regarded as “letters”.
The monopoly is designed to fend off competition from privately owned courier companies. The enforceability of this directive is, however, questionable as courier companies deliver sub-1kg parcels regardless of the rules.
The Post Office has failed as a business. It was placed into business rescue proceedings last year following litigation by creditors, which included landlords to whom the Post Office owed rent.
The troubled state-owned entity was placed into business rescue last July. According to the business rescue plan, it has debts of R4.5-billion, with R3.9-billion owed to Postbank and about R400-million owed in rental arrears. Part of the business rescue plan includes the retrenchment of around 6 000 postal workers.
By April, some 4 870 retrenchment letters had already been sent out as part of the business rescue proceedings. A plan to tap into the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) to save these jobs led to a majority of the retrenchment letters being rescinded.
The Ters plan did not last long, however. A week after the announcement, business rescue practitioners Anoosh Rooplal and Juanito Damons announced their application had been unsuccessful, meaning thousands of Post Office workers again face the chop.
In a statement, Rooplal said: “We are very disappointed with the unsuccessful application, as we were hopeful that the Ters funding would provide a temporary relief to the bargaining unit staff members, as the funding would have effectively been used to upskill and retrain staff for possible job placements while still earning a salary.”
Beneficial
Most Post Office branches across South Africa are non-operational and have been for months. Despite these harsh realities, Gungubele is of the view that a monopoly on sub-1kg parcels is beneficial to South Africans.
“The legislation framework and the licence require the Post Office to provide such services universally to every citizen in the country to ensure that all citizens have equal access to a basic postal service that is reasonably accessible regardless of physical location, at a uniform postage rate and at an affordable price,” the minister said in the Government Gazette notice. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media