Cape Town - Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has revealed that a total of 144 branches of the post office have been closed.
DA MP Madeleine Hicklin wrote to Ntshavheni enquiring whether she has found that the closure of the large number of post offices in the past three years was mainly due to the desire to reduce the footprint of the SA Post Office and the failure to pay the rental amounts.
In her written response, Ntshavheni said most post offices in urban areas were closed due to unprofitability as well as congestion of branches.
She also said the few branches closed in rural areas were due to incidents of crime. “A total of 144 branches were closed. Out of the 144 closed branches, 26 were due to non-payment of rentals,” the minister said.
In May 2021, SAPO CEO Nomkhitha Mona said they planned to close 80 more branches of the post office.
“Our targeted number of branches to close is 130. This was for a lot of reasons, including lack of profitability and the fact that there were too many within a small radius,” she said.
However, Mona said sometimes they had to respect the current contracts they have with landlords because if they stepped out of it immediately, they were prone to penalties.
“We are doing that in staggered form. The number is 80 to go. The target was 130. We have closed some of those,” she said.
Last month, the official opposition decried the dire financial state of SAPO that continued to inflict massive inconvenience to millions of citizens who rely on it to access their private mail, social grants and to transfer parcels.
The party raised its concern after the annual report of the SAPO showed that it suffered a loss of R2.3 billion for the 2020-21 financial year, which marked an increase of R469 million compared to the previous financial year.
Its revenue declined by R1.2 billion during the same period.
DA MP Solly Malatsi said at the time post office branches across the country were closing at an alarming rate leaving millions of customers frustrated with no viable alternative in their communities to access postal, courier and social grant services.
“The only way to save the SA Post Office from further collapse beyond recovery is to review the government's sole ownership of the entity by making provision for private investment to help revive this important institution,” Malatsi said.