Post Office workers were made aware of the layoffs: SAPO CEO

The South African Post Office says the entity has been left with no choice but to retrench 6 000 workers as part of a turnaround strategy.

SAPO has come under fire over the plans to cut the workforce and in some instances, cut salaries by as much as 40%.  The state-owned enterprise has been on a drive to reduce employment costs in a bid to return to profitability.

The last time SAPO made a profit was in 2004 and it now has a debt of R8,3 billion with some branches also closing down across the country.

Post Office responds to retrenchments report:

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SAPO CEO Nomkhita Mona says the workers were aware of the retrenchments as part of efforts needed to save the entity.

“We developed a strategy called the Post Office of tomorrow as part of the work that we did in developing the strategy, we realised at 15 600 employees at the Post Office at the time we were over-staffed. And it was important that we need to reduce the workforce of 6 000 people over a period of 2 years. We took 3 000 out in the first year and the following year as we implement the strategy. The unions were aware of this, they can’t be shocked. In the last 20 months, we have been regularly discussing with unions. The first letter of retrenchments was sent in November 2022 as a notification and the one sent this past week was a formal letter which also included the form to the CCMA so this is nothing new, this has been on the table for a long time its part of the options we are looking at.”

Video: Some Post Office staff may get 40% pay cut

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Historic debt

The Post Office says it is riddled with historic debt and is now looking to the Finance Minister for much-needed intervention when he presents the 2023/24 budget.

“We owe our creditors and also the Postbank about R8,3 billion so if you have us that today you will be squaring off all the debts we have up to now. When we went to our department as well as the national treasury they said to us, we need to go back and rework the numbers and we ended up at R3,2 billion which would assist us in paying part of our debts. That’s what we left at Treasury we are unsure how much we can get assistance for,” explains Mona.

SAPO says the turnaround strategy makes room for only 9 000 employees if achieved over time. It has also pleaded for patience from customers and understanding from employees as it puts all its plans in motion to achieve stability.

The Communication Workers Union plans to challenge the looming retrenchments: 
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