The hopes of the South African Post Office (Sapo) obtaining a possible bail-out from the National Treasury were dashed on Wednesday when Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivered his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS).
Last month, Sapo told Parliament that it was facing what it called “Day Zero”, a situation where it could run out of funds in October.
It had stated that the situation was so serious that should the funding not be found, it could be at risk of being liquidated.
Sapo, which was placed under business rescue last year, had informed the MPs that it had received R2.4bn from the National Treasury for the business rescue and that R3.8bn was outstanding. Asked during a closed media briefing on MTBPS on Wednesday, Godongwana referred journalists to his previous speech when he had spoken about “tough love”.
“We are on that path of making sure that not every state-owned enterprise is going to say we want money,” he said.
The Minister said Sapo had told them that their Day-Zero was on the same day the MTBPS was tabled.
“There is no money in the adjustment budget as we speak.
“We are hoping that the department (of Communications and Digital Technologies) will find ways of reprioritising their budget.”
Godongwana said his department was committed to the principle of not dishing out bailouts as requested by SOEs.
He told of a document that was released by the National Treasury showing that R520m in bailout money had been made since 2008.
Godongwana said the bailouts came from the funding of the social service, the army, police and correctional services. “Those departments are still underfunded and to claw back will take us a while.”
He said the National Treasury was asking what the future of Sapo was.
“You may say, we give the R3bn, assuming we had it, what is next, are they not to come back and ask for more. The question should be about the future of Sapo,” Godongwana added.
Earlier this month, Communications Minister Solly Malatsi announced that he asked the support of the National Treasury to pursue private partnerships for Sapo.
Malatsi asked the National Treasury to support the formation of a task team to investigate private financial and operations partners for Sapo to enable serious consideration of privatisation scenarios.
“The goal is to modernise Sapo’s operations, drive innovation and increase its competitiveness,” he said. He had indicated that it was clear that any allocation of previously committed funds to the Sapo, which is under business rescue, would be based on revised business plan by the business rescue practitioners that met the National Treasury's expectations and work to ensure there was accountability for failure to meet previous conditions that were imposed for the financial support Sapo received.
“It is with the goal of innovation and competitive Post Office that it would be strategic to look into its current exclusive licence on reserved postal services. The focus is on fostering an open, competitive environment that promotes innovation and service excellence.”
Cape Times