Note to editors: Please find attached soundbite by Dianne Kohler Barnard MP.
The DA condemns the South African Post Office (SAPO) plan to retrench 6 000 of its employees.
This is happening as our country is suffering with a catastrophically high unemployment rate.
Last month the DA reported that the SAPO was planning on cutting staff salaries by 40%, while the CEO receives a salary of almost R4 million rand.
The Treasury had projected that the number of SAPO employees would shrink from 16 275 in 2021/22 to a projected 10 254 in 2024/25. This meant that some 40% of positions would be cut.
Now it has been revealed that they indeed plan to retrench 6000 employees, while it is still not even clear if the CEO has taken a pay cut in the wake of these developments.
The cutting of these jobs will not only have a major impact on the employees but also the communities who desperately depend on the Post Office to collect their grants and parcels.
This round of retrenchments again highlights how the ANC government has mismanaged and corrupted SOEs to the detriment of all our citizens. The fact that numerous private postal businesses are now favoured by the public, shows that the SAPO should and could be turned around. Instead, mismanagement is sounding its death-knell.
The way in which staff have been treated at the Post Office is scandalous – their contributions for medical aid, pension and the like are appropriated by management, so they have lost all benefits, and now we hear the news of the layoffs. A full Hawks investigation into this misappropriation of funds is underway at our request.
The DA has now submitted numerous Parliamentary Questions to the Minister regarding the situation at SAPO and we would also like to reiterate our stance, that should these salary cuts and retrenchment go ahead while the CEO and her management team live in luxury, we will be reporting the SAPO to the Department of Labour, the CCMA and the Public Protector.