{"id":113798,"date":"2016-02-23T13:47:04","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T11:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=113798"},"modified":"2016-02-23T13:47:04","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T11:47:04","slug":"sa-post-office-suffers-r1-billion-operating-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/113798\/sa-post-office-suffers-r1-billion-operating-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"SA Post Office suffers R1 billion operating loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The DA says that the South African Post Office (SAPO) Annual Report for the year ended 28 February 2015 has finally been tabled before Parliament &#8211; eight months late.<\/p>\n<p>According to the political party, the report reveals a record R1.45 billion loss \u2013 extended by 260% over the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>The 2015 Annual Report showed the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An operating loss of R994 million (extended by 69%);<\/li>\n<li>Fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R95 million;<\/li>\n<li>Irregular expenditure R576 million;<\/li>\n<li>Only 14% of Annual Performance Indicators achieved;<\/li>\n<li>67% of performance targets could not be measured<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The DA said that total assets have declined by 13% to R9.859 billion, with current liabilities increasing by 7% to R7.39 billion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But when the PostBank\u2019s assets of R6.9 billion are stripped out of the balance sheet, the true picture emerges \u2013 that of an entity that is hopelessly insolvent,&#8221; said Cameron MacKenzie, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services.<\/p>\n<p>MacKenzie said that following the forced resignation of the previous board in November 2014, appointed SAPO Administrator Dr Simo Lushaba projected a R1.2 billion loss for the 2014\/2015 financial year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That the actual loss is 20% greater suggests the turnaround plan is not only flawed, it is unachievable,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>With debt of nearly R1 billion, new CEO at SAPO, Mark Barnes, has asked Treasury for a a bailout of between R2.5 billion and R3.5 billion to fund its turnaround, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/national\/2016\/02\/23\/debt-ridden-post-office-asks-treasury-for-cash-injection-to-help-fund-turnaround\" target=\"_blank\">Business Day<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bailouts of state-owned entities will merely accelerate a ratings downgrade for South Africa. It is a price too high to pay for rescuing a grossly mismanaged SAPO, whose catastrophic leadership was appointed, tolerated and supported by government for years,&#8221; said MacKenzie.<\/p>\n<p>He said that in line with the recommendations of the Presidential Review Commission on State-owned Entities, SAPO must be recapitalised by immediately investigating the sale of PostBank to the private sector, with government retaining a golden share.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This will provide the funds necessary to turn the entity around and place it on a sound financial footing without negatively impacting the country fiscus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on SAPO<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to SA Post Office expects R1.3 billion loss\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/78737\/sa-post-office-expects-r1-3-billion-loss\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">SA Post Office expects R1.3 billion loss<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/113057\/are-sa-state-owned-companies-making-a-profit\/\">Are SA state-owned companies making a profit?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/100894\/sa-post-office-acting-ceo-steps-down\/\"><strong>SA Post Office acting CEO steps down<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The DA says that the South African Post Office (SAPO) Annual Report for the year ended 28 February 2015 has finally been tabled before Parliament &#8211; eight months late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":113828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,3004],"class_list":["post-113798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-sapo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113798"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113840,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113798\/revisions\/113840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}