Time to let go: What future for the SA post office?

CapeTalk's John Maytham speaks to Mark Barnes, former CEO of the South African Post Office.

Listen below:

Despite receiving R2.55 billion in capital injections over the past two years and seeking an additional R3.8 billion, the South African Post Office continues to face operating losses and mounting debt.

So what is the answer? Continue funding it, or accept that it is time to let it go?

Mark Barnes, is former CEO of the South African Post Office.

He admits he never saw a future for the post office in simply just delivering mail:

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"You'd have to be very short sighted to have thought that was the future."

- Mark Barnes, former CEO of the South African Post Office

"But what we did see a future in was a commercially irreplaceable infrastructure that's got some of the best locations in every little town in South Africa."

- Mark Barnes, Former CEO of the South African Post Office

Barnes says with the right restructuring the post office could have played a significant role in the lives of South Africans:

"You could go there to get internet, you could go there to get antiretrovirals, medicine, passports, within walking distance of where you live."

- Mark Barnes, Former CEO of the South African Post Office

Barnes says that all branches which survived the demise of the post office have taken similar steps to adapt:

"They were repurposed for other services and they facilitated financial transactions."

- Mark Barnes, Former CEO of the South African Post Office

The latter has been key, he says:

"We saw, looking at international experience, that you had to be part of the financial system in order to have a life."

Mark Barnes, Former CEO of the South African Post Office

Scroll up to listen to the full conversation from the Afternoon Drive.

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