Post Office continues ‘on road to ruin’

The South African Post Office’s R1.1-billion loss for the financial year ended March 31 was described yesterday as another milestone on its “road to ruin”.

The state-owned company confirmed in its annual report for 2015-16 that group losses were down to R1.15- billion, from R1.5-billion the previous year.

DA MP Cameron MacKenzie said yesterday that unless urgent steps were taken to introduce profitable public- private partnerships that included the Postbank and the courier and parcels business‚ it would not be too long before funds ran out and the Post Office turned to the government for more bailouts.

In addition to a government bailout of R650-million‚ the Post Office had borrowed its way out of trouble for this financial year thanks to a government guarantee of R2.7-billion‚ MacKenzie said.

“Yet the entity continues to lose on average more than R120-million a month. “By the end of this year‚ about R1-billion of this borrowing [in excess of R3-billion] will have been used to fund the monthly [incomeexpenditure] shortfall.”

It was clear the Post Office was “dangerously close to running out of other people’s money”.