SAPO â a microcosm of SS South Africa?
AS a self-confessed petrol head and general addict of gismos and gadgets, I recently made an on-line purchase â or so I thought â of some small items to make my pride and joy look a little more appealing.
The cost including postage from the UK was less than £10.
A few hours after placing my order I received a polite email telling me that my order was cancelled and I would be refunded my money, but I could order again so long as I used a courier service.
The reason, the vendor explained, was that its experience had shown that items posted to South Africa almost never reached their destination â either âlostâ or stolen. So to avoid the considerable inconvenience â and financial loss â only courier services orders would be expedited.
The SA Post Office (Sapo) has joined a growing list of state-owned entities that have been declared financially insolvent by the Auditor-General because the company is loss-making, cash-strapped, and battles to honour its debt payments when they become due.
Sapo has published an annual report for its financial year 2019/20, which shows that the entity’s crisis has worsened at leadership, operational and financial levels.
At a leadership level, Sapo has faced an exodus of executives, while the state-owned entity didn’t have a permanent CEO (Nomkhita Mona was recently appointed), and the CFO and COO positions are yet to be filled. The executives who have left Sapo in recent months include Mark Barnes (CEO), Lindiwe Kwele (COO), Khathutshelo Ramukumba (a CFO who resigned after three months), and more than four people have resigned from the board.
Mark Barnes rips government over interference with Sapo
By Dineo Faku
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JOHANNESBURG - Former South African Post Office (Sapo) chief executive Mark Barnes has taken to social media to vent about the state of the frail state-owned entity as it emerged that the group chief financial officer (CFO) had quit barely two months into his tenure.
Barnes accused the government on Friday of interfering with the institutions turnaround strategy, which has led to financial difficulties at the post office.
“My contract as chief executive of Sapo should ve only ended today. If the government had let management get on with our (board-approved, portfolio committee supported) strategy we would ve completed the turnaround of Sapo by now. Imagine that,” Barnes said on his Twitter account.
Post Office CFO resigns after three months on the job The post office has been hamstrung by acute management and financial problems that have left it on the brink of collapse BL PREMIUM
UPDATED 14 January 2021 - 18:06
The SA Post Office’s CFO, Khathutshelo Ramukumba, has resigned from the embattled state-owned entity (SOE) after three months in the role, deepening leadership instability at the postal utility.
The Post Office board confirmed on Thursday that Ramukumba resigned with effect from December 31 2020 for personal reasons . It did not provide further detail about his departure and no acting CFO has been announced.
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