#EditorsNote: Will Post Office survive the incoming Christmas mail traffic?
A regional manager of the SA Post Office has sent a press statement to the media urging South Africans who wish to mail parcels for the festive season to foreign destinations to do so by month end.
This is because the parcels are sent via Durban or Cape Town, and undergo rigorous checks to ensure they comply with postal regulations.
All well and good.
But what about the incoming Christmas mail traffic? Will South African recipients get it in time? In fact, will they receive it at all?
There is no question that in the last few years Sapo has undergone a radical transformation in its service.
Whereas in the past the biggest complaint was mail being a few days late, in recent times, mail has been months late, or vanished into the postal abyss.
Almost everyone who uses the Post Office has some sorrowful tale to tell. I wrote about my gripes with the Post Office on these pages on July 2, and I still haven't had any joy.
There was a two-week strike in July - and cynics will say they see no difference even when there isn't one - and apparently it has created a helluva backlog at the sorting centres.
At the beginning of last December I mailed a dozen Christmas cards, and only two arrived. I subscribe to National Geographic magazine in Washington DC, and since January I have received only four editions of the 10 that I ought to have got by now. Check the letters pages - readers are complaining that they're still receiving, in dribs and drabs, their Christmas mail sent last year.
Sapo chief executive Mark Barnes was quoted in Business Day explaining that the Post Office has been deluged by the July strike, with 16million items still at depots countrywide. This was an improvement on the 38million letters and parcels immediately after the strike.
He promised that if the rate of clearance continued, all domestic mail items would be cleared by month end. I'm not holding my breath.
Sapo says it receives 250000 new international items at the main centre at OR Tambo International Airport each day.
Whereas in the past a letter mailed from overseas would be in one's mailbox within four days, these days it's cause for celebration if it arrives at all.
What's taking place behind those walls at the mail centres? I have this image of gigantic shredding machines, devouring thousands of letters and turning them into pulp for recycling.
Sapo is an inextricable part of our lives - it employs 23800 people and operates more than 2400 postal outlets throughout the country. This means it has a presence in almost every single town and hamlet in the country. The annual fee for its post boxes does not come cheaply - the current fee is R450. What value do clients get for their money?
Makgabutlane is an assistant editor at The Star