Culture of service may save Post Office

The South African Post Office (Sapo) is a tragic, yet accurate, metaphor for the state of the whole of South Africa. It is broke. It is overstaffed. It offers poor service. And it continues to drain taxpayer money. It is plainly dying.

That much is evident in the frantic, last-ditch efforts this week to keep it going in some form … including plans to trim its 12 000-strong workforce by half.

It is sad that this number of people will lose their employment, but many of them – and certainly their senior management – have actually been responsible for their own demise.

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Perhaps they were under the belief that they could never be fired, as are most people in the civil service and state-owned enterprises who think the ANC government has given them jobs for life.

While in the “old days” one could certainly accuse the National Party government of supplying “sheltered employment” for its white supporters, at least the post office functioned.

Mail was delivered timeously (although maybe only to white areas), parcels could be collected and various administrative chores could be performed at the counters.

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Today, many post offices have been closed and those which remain open are, in many cases, disintegrating wrecks – a situation which speaks of decades of cadre-deployed mismanagement and, more importantly, political interference.

Sapo still performs a vital function in society, not the least of which is providing a place for pensions and grants to be collected.

Therefore, it must not be allowed to die. However, it must also not be allowed to continue to wallow aimlessly in a sea of taxpayer rands. Get rid of the dead wood. Get rid of the debt. Employ the right people and instill a culture of service.

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That recipe could work to save our post offices … and applied with vigour could radically transform all government departments and parastatals.