LETTER: Post Office no longer exists as a postal service

What planet does Boyce Maneli live on? Or has he been in a coma for the last 10 years? The SA Post Office is a dead horse, and asking for more money to sink into it can only come from a clueless politician (“Catastrophe warning if Post Office does not get bailout”, November 13).        

Saying that the failure to allocate more funds will be catastrophic to service delivery implies some actual service delivery. The situation already is catastrophic. The rot set in during the almost endless strikes when the public and businesses realised the Post Office cannot be relied on and switched to electronic correspondence wherever possible. After that, its inept and/or corrupt “leadership” managed to finish off this once proud organisation.

Over the past four years or so the percentage of mail sent to me versus the mail actually delivered has declined steadily, until about three months ago it ceased altogether. Most of the post offices in my area have closed permanently, and many others temporarily, because of nonpayment of rent or utilities. There are neither vehicles nor fuel to deliver the post. Two months ago I decided to check the system and posted half a dozen letters to myself from different Gauteng post offices. No surprise: not one of the letters has been delivered to date, and I’m pretty sure they never will be.

For all practical purposes the Post Office does not exist anymore as a postal service, which raises the question what its personnel do to keep themselves busy. In the meantime, if we want a letter delivered reliably we are in the hands of courier services and have to pay hundreds of rand to post a few grams.

I hope some nationwide network, such as a retail chain, will see an opportunity and find a way of putting some sort of private postal system in place. However imperfect and expensive it might be, it would be better than the nothing we have now.

Vashek Korinek
Florida Hills

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