Several retrenched South African Post Office workers staged a protest march at the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies on Tuesday to demand that Minister Solly Malatsi pay them outstanding money that was not paid into their pension funds when they got retrenched.
Jacqueline Maja, who was retrenched in 2024 told Tshwane Talks that she and her fellow retrenched workers have been engaging both Minister Solly Malatsi and the Business Rescue Practitioners (BRP) of the South African Post Office for years now and each time they have been told that their money will be paid out once the South African Post Office received funding from the National Treasury.
“We are now aware that the Minister has given the Post Office some money, so we now want our monies to be paid to us with immediate effect,” she said.
Maja pointed out that “there was no clear criteria that was used when retrenching Post Office workers, this as the whole process was done randomly; with management just picking and chosing who to retrech at the drop of a hat.”
She said there was lots of corruption taking place regarding the retrenchments process because some of the workers who had initially been retrenched were re-employed just because they happened to be friends or relatives of these who are in the management positions of the Post Office.
Albert Khwasha who worked for the Post Office as a driver from 1990 to 2023, told Tshwane Talks that he and some workers were advised to take voluntary severance packages and use the money to buy bakkies which they would use to help South African Post Office to deliver goods to its customers as contracted service providers.
“But after a year we were told that our services were no longer needed and now I am stuck with the burden of having to pay off monthly installments for the bakkie which is just standing in my yard and not bringing in any income for me,” said Khwasha as he pointed out that he has a family that he must look after, including children who are at tertiary level and need his financial support.
Jackson Khoza from Atteridgrville said he was also retrenched in 2024 by the South African Post Office and that he wants the remainder of his pension fund money from the Post Office.
About 4 600 workers were retrenched at the time without proper consultation whatsoever.
“The Post Office has been deducting our money for the purpose of pension fund which is under Sanlam, but it has now emerged that since 2020 the Post Office had stopped paying money to the pension fund even though they had continued to deduct it from our salaries,” he lamented.
“Our families are suffering as a result of us being retrenched and what makes matters more painful is that though we have been retrenched with financial constraints being cited as a reason, the Post Office continues to hire other people at the moment, so that means the Post Office has money,” he griped.
“We don’t want to come to the Minister’s office again; all the we want is to be paid our pension fund money so that we and our families can survive,” fumed Khoza.
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