Why Post Office should be saved as 'critical pillar of financial inclusion in SA'

Ahead of the Budget 2026, the debate around the future of the beleaguered South African Post Office (SAPO) has reignited.

Millions in taxpayers' money has been spent on the business rescue process for the national postal service, with the practitioners reiterating the warning that if they don't get the money they need, SAPO might have to go into provisional liquidation.

Some South Africans might question our need for a post office service at all in today's world, but there are analysts who believe a way must be found to save it.

Stephen Grootes speaks to one such "believer", Kameshnee Naidoo, who is a visiting adjunct professor at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits University.

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In an opinion piece titled SA can’t afford to lose its Post Office, Naidoo argues that SAPO's long history makes it "a unique national asset with the sum of its parts rendering it irreplaceable and non-replicable".

She describes it as a critical pillar of financial inclusion in our country.

Sketching her background on The Money Show, Naidoo cites her experience of working in countries around the world, where she looked at the lived reality of communities on the ground.

"The thing that I kept coming up with around inclusive growth, around the things that people need is a common social infrastructure: a place to meet, a place to do their business, a place where local economic activity can thrive. Those things happen in urban areas."

"In Joburg, for instance, I don't have a problem to find a place to do my business, to get internet connectivity... but those realities don't exist for the large majority of South Africans living in outlying areas."

She says the Post Office, with its branch network and access to digital infrastructure, provides an accessible way for South Africans to enter the new era.

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to Naidoo's passionate argument, and click here to read her opinion piece