South African Post Office workers union DEPACU joined by SAPWU marched to the SAPO head office in Bosman and to National Treasury offices in Tshwane on Friday demanding that the fiscus body must pay out billions of rand as promised to bail out the South African Post Office.
The other demand is aimed at the management of the South African Post Office itself regarding payment of pension funds and the two pot system.
They delivered a copy of memorandum to the SAPO South African Post Office head office in Bosman and to the National Treasury.
They give both department 7 days to response to their demand.
According to DEPACU treasury general Martin Mbetse, the 3,8 billion rand would help in turning the Post Office around and making sure that workers also get what is due to them in terms of salaries and their jobs remain secure.
Another issue which DEPACU is demanding is that the two pot system be implemented with immediate effect in full so that workers can access part of their pension funds and make ends meet as many of them are literally broke due to the low salaries that they earn every month due to the unstable situation that the Post Office finds itself in at the moment.
“We want to hand a memorandum of understanding to the management of the South African Post Office here in Tshwane regarding pension fund issues as we have many concerns in this regard,” said Mbetse.
“At the moment the two-pot system has not been implemented in full at the Post Office,” he said.
“Another issue is that we will also march today to the National Treasury offices to demand the 3,8 billion rand that the government promised to pay to the business rescue practitioners so that they can turn around the post office’s fortunes,” he said pointing out that if the money is not paid by the government as promised, then the Post Office will reach day zero and shut down, meaning workers will lose their jobs.
He said payment of the 3,8 billion rand to South African Post Office is actually a court order of the High Court in Pretoria and that they as DEPACU want to remind Treasury to carry out its obligations as ordered by the court.
“For the longest time now, we have been engaging the Minister of Finance to take the issue of rescuing the Post Office seriously and as a union we can’t fold our arms and watch politicians getting rid of the South African Post Office as is apparently the case at the moment,” he said.
Shop steward at the Post Office Thapelo Netshidzivhani told Tshwane Talks that they as workers want the government to cough out the aforementioned billions of rand to rescue the Post Office and that at the moment workers are suffering regarding the low salaries that they receive from the Post Office and failure by the Post Office to implement the two-pot pension fund system.
“We are of the opinion that workers are entitled to their pensions because at the moment they find themselves living under lots of debts, this as they haven’t received any salary increases for up to seven years and they are actually living from hand to mouth,” he said.
“As soon as they get paid their money goes towards buying food and doesn’t cater for other needs and responsibilities like taking children to tertiary institutions,” explained Netshidzivhani.
He lamented the fact that 6000 Post Office workers have already been retrenched from the Post Office and more shall follow because the government is not prepared to save the Post Office from being shut down.
“The government is killing many families with these retrenchments, and this is because the elections have come and gone now, and they as Ministers and officials are treating us harshly as they don’t need our votes any longer,” lamented Netshidzivhani.
Senior manager employer relation James Van Der Berg received the memorandum and responsed to the workers that he acknowledges the receipt of the memorandum and will be forwarded to the responsible people.
Deputy Director general for corporate services Tladi Mngobezulu received a memorandum at the department of nationl treasury.
“I accept this memorandum on behalf of the minister of finance, but we are also going to make sure he delivers this part of this memo to his counterpart, and we will response to the memorandum.
Copy of a memorandum to SAPO:
Copy of a memorandum to National treasury:
