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Johannesburg - Eight magazine publishers have turned to South Africa’s communications watchdog to lodge a formal complaint against the country’s post office for allegedly breaching its licence conditions.
The specialist magazine publishers have lodged the complaint against the South African Post Office (Sapo) with the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
The publishers allege Sapo has failed to meet its licence conditions to reliably distribute post for “years”. Icasa is tasked by law to monitor Sapo’s licence obligations.
Spokesperson for the publishers, Chris Yelland, told Fin24 that disrupted postal deliveries are costing magazine publishers. This is as advertisers pull out over late or non-deliveries, and readers cancel their subscriptions.
Yelland, who is also the Managing Director EE Publishers, said his company spends approximately R2m per year with Sapo to distribute magazines: many of which never get to their subscribers.
“There are real costs involved; real damages involved,” Yelland told Fin24.
“It has caused us great financial damage over several years,” he said.
The publishers in a statement on Thursday also said that “this formal complaint lodged by the publishers with Icasa is a precursor to a possible class action".
Strikes drag down Sapo
The publishers’ complaint follows the end of a crippling four month strike at Sapo that resulted in post piling up.
Around 7 900 Sapo casual workers across the country demanded an 8% wage hike and permanent employment. Late last month, two unions agreed to a settlement with Sapo.
But Yelland said threats of further strikes exist.
“Their (Sapo’s) problems always relate to one thing, and that is the use of temporary labour,” Yelland told Fin24.
“It's unconscionable to keep them employed on temporary contracts,” he added.
Fin24 last month also reported on how the same group of publishers launched a tender to help distribute their magazines in light of Sapo’s woes.
“We've got results of the tender back and made arrangements,” Yelland said but he added that the contract will be expensive.
Government steps in
Meanwhile, on Thursday President Jacob Zuma assigned his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa with overseeing a turn-around at cash-strapped state-owned entities Sapo, Eskom and South African Airlines (SAA).
Sapo has asked for a government bailout of R2.3bn.
Bongani Diako, part of Sapo's media relations team, told Fin24 on Friday morning that the post office is back to "100%" operations after the strikes.
However, Sapo has not yet responded to questions posed by Fin24 regarding the magazine publishers' official complaint with Icasa.
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