Johannesburg - SA Post Office (SAPO) chief executive Mark Barnes has opened up about his vision for the Post Office, calling on the government, labour and business to work together to restore the embattled parastatal’s glory.
Barnes told an Afrika Tikkun corporate breakfast meeting at the Wanderers Club in Johannesburg that the three social partners could no longer afford to have adversarial relationships between them.
He said when he took over the reins last year, SAPO was on its knees with basic necessities – such as toilet paper – not readily available due to suppliers being owed money.
Challenges
Barnes said while challenges remained, SAPO needed to focus its energy on making its balance sheet better and modernise its business.
“We have a paper-based system, we need to cross the technological divides and use smartphones in our business to get to our clients,” he said.
Barnes said the Post Office wanted to achieve financial independence within three years and raise its own capital without government guarantees.
“We still believe we will turn a profit by 2018; we hope to still have a valuable asset in five years time.”
Barnes said he was also in the process of bettering relations with labour.
“It has been a huge problem, in 2014 during the prolonged strike we lost 30 percent of our revenue,” Barnes said, referring to the 2014 protracted strike that cost SAPO billions of rand.
He said while they had managed to settle all the labour issues with unions, they still had problems with unrecognised unions operating in the Post Office. “Our view is very clear, if you embark on threatening the peace, livelihoods and property of people, you cannot work for Sapo, that is not negotiable.”
He said the announcement last week that Sapo had been granted first-level application for a banking licence to open the Postbank to offer services such as credit and other banking facilities to its clients was an important step in fulfilling its mandate.
Last week the Reserve Bank approved Sapo’s first-level application for a banking licence for Postbank. This moved Postbank closer to offering more than just savings accounts.
Post and Telecoms Minister Siyabonga Cwele said his department expected the licence to be finalised within 12 months. He said, once operational, Postbank would revolutionise the way banking was done in the township and rural areas.
Revolutionary
Barnes said the Postbank would offer small businesses with base capital to expand and help in reducing unemployment.
“The township economy lives from one day to the next, they don’t have any banking facilities,” Barnes said.
He said a third of their strategy going forward was based on providing financial services, especially to the unbanked rural customers and small businesses.
Barnes said he expected the fully commercialised Postbank to be operational within two years. He said Sapo had 50 million addresses and 1 600 branches that it could use to access new clients.
“We want to own the last mile,” Barnes said. “We will start with the socio-economic mandate which will translate in a broader middle class.”
BUSINESS REPORT