{"id":846600,"date":"2025-12-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=846600"},"modified":"2025-12-18T09:44:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T07:44:27","slug":"another-state-monopoly-in-south-africa-comes-crashing-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/846600\/another-state-monopoly-in-south-africa-comes-crashing-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Another state monopoly in South Africa comes crashing down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Department of Communication and Digital Technology has killed the South African Post Office&#8217;s monopoly on delivering small parcels in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a recent gazette, DCDT Minister Solly Malatsi, under Section 15(3) of the Postal Services Act, amended Schedule 1 of the Act, removing the reference to &#8220;small parcels&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schedule 1 of the Act refers to reserved postal services that are exclusively the mandate of the Post Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Originally, these services included &#8220;all letters, postcards, printed matter, <strong>small parcels<\/strong> and other postal articles subject to the mass or size limitations set&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This has now been changed to remove &#8220;small parcels&#8221; from the services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Post Office has long held a contentious exclusivity licence to deliver small packages weighing under 1kg in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Private sector stakeholders in the logistics sector, such as private postal services and courier services, have strongly opposed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the licence, private couriers are restricted from delivering:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>All letters, postcards, printed matter, small parcels and other postal articles weighing up to 1 kilogram;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The same as the above, if it fits into a rectangular box (458mm long x 324mm wide and 100mm thick) or cylinder (458mm long, 100mm thick, up to 1kg).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Issuing of postage stamps<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Provision of roadside collection and address boxes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In May 2024, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies\u00a0extended the exclusivity of this section to 1 April 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Notably, the SAPO\u2019s 25-year exclusivity licence, as per the Act, commenced in 2000, which means the period would have expired on 1 April 2025 anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Post Office has long held the exclusive right to be the sole provider of these services, but due to the collapse of the SAPO, it has never been practically upheld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In light of this, in March of this year, Malatsi initiated a review of the laws, investigating whether they are necessary to fulfil the SAPO&#8217;s mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A big hurdle for SAPO<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/solly.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/solly-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-808876\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/solly-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/solly-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/solly-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/solly.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Communications Minister Solly Malatsi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While the minister has made only one change so far, it is significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Presenting its strategic plan to Parliament earlier this year, the SAPO outlined its path from generating approximately R1.9 billion in revenue in 2024 to a target of R5.2 billion by 2029.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To do this, it aims to capture approximately 5% of the Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) delivery markets and achieve around 25% of the Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) market within five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also aims to generate new revenue from connectivity services in underserved areas. It anticipates a significant boost from the AARTO system once it is rolled out and its operational requirements are fully implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If SAPO\u2019s vision for its business becomes a reality,\u00a0its courier and parcel services would grow from a paltry R38 million contributor in 2024 to a R1.4 billion behemoth by 2029.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, a significant part of this was supposed to be its trump card: exclusive rights to deliver small packages, which would give it a competitive advantage in e-commerce and against private players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this advantage fading\u2014and with AARTO being delayed\u2014it remains to be seen how SAPO will effectively operate in a fully, and legally, competitive market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Post Office will have some time to consider its options. As part of the gazetting of the change, Malatsi extended the exclusivity for a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Exclusivity ends one year from the date of publication of the Gazette (ie, 12 December 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/53854-12-12-ComDigitalTechnologieindb.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Communication and Digital Technology has killed the South African Post Office&#8217;s monopoly on delivering small parcels in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":831478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[7722,5298,3003],"class_list":["post-846600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-courier","tag-delivery","tag-post-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846600","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=846600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846602,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846600\/revisions\/846602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}