The South African Post Office (Sapo) shutting down 130 branches might jeopardise the South African Social Security Agency’s (Sassa's) grant agreement.
The corporate identity of the South African Post Office (Sapo), the design of which goes back many years, is now, sadly, looking perfectly appropriate to its current situation…because the dominant shade in its colour
scheme is red.
This is the colour of adventure, of anger, possibly, but most commonly these days (as is blood seeping from a dying corpse) it’s used to denote financial losses. In the case of Sapo, these are currently running at about R3.5 billion. And the entity is, in all senses of the word, bankrupt.
At one stage, it could boast proudly about moving more than two million items of mail a day. In 2021, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who still uses “snail mail” and those who use the Sapo’s version will,
virtually guaranteed, have had bad experiences.
The losses do, it must be said, have something to do with the changing world, where almost everyone communicates via cyberspace. But they also have to do with perpetual mismanagement by ANC-deployed cadres who believe their positions are for life.
The mushrooming private postal and courier services are testament to South Africans voting with their feet and abandoning Sapo in droves.
Can it be saved? Should we even bother?
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