The South African Post Office (Sapo) is a tragic, but accurate, metaphor for the country of South Africa. It’s broken. It’s overstaffed. Offer bad service. And continue to spend taxpayers’ money. It was clearly dead.
That much is evident in the frantic, last-ditch efforts this week to keep it going in some form… including plans to cut its 12 000-strong workforce by half.
It is sad that this number of people will lose their jobs, but many people – and certainly senior management – are responsible for their own deaths.
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Perhaps he is convinced that he cannot be fired, as are most people in the civil service and state-owned enterprises who think that the ANC government has given them a job for life.
While in the “olden days” it would have been possible to accuse the National Party government of providing “protected jobs” to white supporters, at least the post office worked.
Mail is delivered on time (even if only to white areas), parcels can be collected and various administrative tasks can be carried out at the counter.
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Today, many post offices are closed and those that remain open are, in many cases, dilapidated ruins – a situation that speaks to decades of cadre mismanagement and, more importantly, political interference.
Sapo still performs a vital function in society, not the least of which is providing a place to retire and funds to accumulate.
Therefore, it should not be allowed to die. However, it should also not be allowed to continue to wallow aimlessly in the sea of taxpayer rands. Remove dead wood. Get a loan. Employ the right people and instill a culture of service.
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The recipe could save our post offices… and applied diligently could transform all government departments and parastatals.