New SAPO CEO says privatisation is not part of turnaround plan

Mark Barnes, the newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer of the South African Post Office (SAPO), has told local media that privatisation is not part of the “turnaround plans” for the company. As previously reported, Mark Barnes, the Executive Chairman of the Purple Group, is set to assume his new role as SAPO CEO on 15 January. However, he has already been speaking to the local media about the plans that he and the government hope will help “turn around” the financially-troubled postal operator.

But he told media company Fin24 that privatisation is not on the agenda.

“What we’re going to do now has got nothing to do with privatisation; it’s just got to do with turning a business around in accordance with their strategic turnaround plan and making it a viable business-connected business,” Barnes was quoted as saying.

Barnes was quoted as saying that SAPO should look to take advantage of its national network of branches to reach out to customers with new services.

“I put the proposition forward to government some time ago that actually the way out of the difficulties at the Post Office is growth not restraint, and that it is rather well positioned if you think of it as not just the Post Office but as this organisation with an extreme reach in terms of its representation in the country with something like 2 500 points of representation, 1 500 branches,” Barnes was quoted as saying.

“Inside the Post Office is a bank with a seriously low cost of capital and it’s a very close to most of the population of our country.”

Interestingly, the postal workers’ union in the US and the Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders have also been talking up the benefits of “postal banking” as a source of extra revenue for the US Postal Service (USPS).