Mark Barnes has a lot of good ideas to turn the SA Post Office around and enable it to compete in the Internet world — among them a better package-delivery service, banking and social grant distribution. But getting government backing for every move he makes may prove to be a tougher challenge than anything competitors can throw at him.
The past 10-15 years have been nightmarish. There have been dramatic changes in the operating environment, largely brought about by the spread of the Internet and the near-death of the letter; and together with sweeping political change in SA, this made changes in the management of Sapo ineluctable.
Barnes takes comfort from finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s comments that money would be found to put Sapo (and SA Airways) on a sounder financial footing.
The problem for government (Sapo’s only shareholder) and the people alike is that Sapo doesn’t provide anything like the service traditionally associated with it. After years of decline, many no longer expect it to even deliver post on time.
It hardly seems the time to be developing noncore services such as social-grant distribution and banking.
This is a peek into Financial Mail's cover story on the SA Post Office.
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