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Speaker 1: The Communication Workers Union criticizing the latest business rescue plan

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Speaker 1: for the South African Post Office, warning that it could

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Speaker 1: come at a heavy cost to co workers. Joining me

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Speaker 1: on the line is the Provincial Secretary for the Communication

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Speaker 1: Workers Union, Tammy Zeleny Tummy A very good afternoon and

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Speaker 1: welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon, and thanks for heaving me.

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Speaker 1: All right, if we can briefly map out what the

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Speaker 1: business rate your plan is for the post office and

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Speaker 1: how you believe it's going to come at a heavy

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Speaker 1: cost to workers.

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Speaker 2: We we we we learned through the media space ourselves

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Speaker 2: that the pr P is intending to make an application

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Speaker 2: for liquidation of the post office. We have met with

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Speaker 2: the BRP as alongside with Kosato to understand because we

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Speaker 2: have never been consulted by the PRPs. The major's recorder

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Speaker 2: within the post Office. The PRP has refute any claims

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Speaker 2: that they are they have applied for any liquidation and

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Speaker 2: they're also saying that currently they're looking for government to

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Speaker 2: pay on the client that was promised off about three

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Speaker 2: point eight billion in order to keep the post office afloat.

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Speaker 2: Our position as communication occasion is very clear that will

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Speaker 2: not accept, allow or even allow any liquidation of the

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Speaker 2: post Office, because once you do that, we are definitely

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Speaker 2: going to be seeing a blood path of jobs being

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Speaker 2: lost in the Post Office, of more than seven thousand

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Speaker 2: of our members that are employed in the Post Office

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Speaker 2: and losing their jobs.

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Speaker 1: The Finance Minister allocating seven hundred million Rand to the

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Speaker 1: Department of Communications and Digital Technology to address funding pressures

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Speaker 1: that many of course must be split between the SABC,

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Speaker 1: sent Tech and the Post Office. Are you making any

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Speaker 1: presentations to the Department and to the Minister guarding money

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Speaker 1: that must be as set aside for the post Office?

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Speaker 2: Most definitely we are, and and I must indicate that

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Speaker 2: through their assistance as well of COSATU, we are in

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Speaker 2: engagements to meet with the Minister, both the Minister of

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Speaker 2: Finance as well as the Minister of Communication so that

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Speaker 2: we can be able to deal with these issues. Remember,

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Speaker 2: there wasn't undertaken even though now they are different interpretation

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Speaker 2: by members of Parliament shocking enough whom also they are

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Speaker 2: the ones that made the commitment to undertake in assisting

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Speaker 2: the Post Office in paying three point eight billion in situations,

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Speaker 2: but today they have a different interpretation of their own resolution. However,

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Speaker 2: we are we are going to We are intending to

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Speaker 2: make representation and appost to the Minister of Finance and

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Speaker 2: the Minister of Communication as well as to the Portfolio

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Speaker 2: Committee itself, so that we can be able to make

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Speaker 2: them understand if the issue of the Post Office is

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Speaker 2: not taken serias and given the it deserves, definitely we

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Speaker 2: are going to behaving issues.

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Speaker 1: Part of the ten around plan involves establishing several public

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Speaker 1: private partnerships with companies, and I believe the Post Office

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Speaker 1: has received ninety five potential private partner submissions already. Will you,

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Speaker 1: as the Communications Workers Union be supportive of such partnerships.

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Speaker 2: Our first stands as Communications Becas Union is to save jobs.

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Speaker 2: Our second fans is that we often view that we can. Firstly,

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Speaker 2: you look at the same model was used in Telcom.

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Speaker 2: What depended in Telcom when it's one hundred percent owned

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Speaker 2: by government, we had to about forty thousand workers. Currently

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Speaker 2: you look at Telcom now or Open Serves, roughly we've

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Speaker 2: got about eight thousand workers that are still employed through

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Speaker 2: the private partnership. All we're saying is that let's as

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Speaker 2: as the post as the postpect has received its license

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Speaker 2: and to to to to to to to work as

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Speaker 2: a bank and compete like other traditional bank. The post

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Speaker 2: office must remain independent and only owned by government in

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Speaker 2: order for it to function. What government needs to be

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Speaker 2: focusing on in rescuing the post office needs to be

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Speaker 2: focusing in terms of what we are submitted of complications

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Speaker 2: as well to say, how do you transform the post

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Speaker 2: office from its traditional work that it does look and

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Speaker 2: so that it talks to the needs of the people

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Speaker 2: being in the food industrial revolution, to transform it as

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Speaker 2: to become an icity hup which is infrastructure that it has,

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Speaker 2: so that we put we inject more capital on the

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Speaker 2: post office so that it becomes a viable business that

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Speaker 2: is able to stand on its own and continue to

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Speaker 2: be owned by government. And in that way we will

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Speaker 2: know that the jobs within the post office are secured.

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Speaker 1: Tell me John has called in from news Berg to

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Speaker 1: say that they have no post office in Uzenberg. In fact,

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Speaker 1: there's no post office close by at all for him,

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Speaker 1: so therefore he uses postnet or email. And I imagine

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Speaker 1: many listeners will be wondering when was the last time

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Speaker 1: they went inside a post office, So there could be

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Speaker 1: some questions as to why the post office needs to

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Speaker 1: continue to exist.

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Speaker 2: It's exactly what I tried to raise. Any own the

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Speaker 2: post office has got its own infrastructure. What the PRPY

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Speaker 2: has done while beside the rechanging about four thousand workers,

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Speaker 2: the pr pers went and sold some of its assets,

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Speaker 2: including immovable asset, the properties in the post office, which

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Speaker 2: should then those properties should be used in terms of

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Speaker 2: what I've just raised. I hear the cry and for

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Speaker 2: the listener in Urenberg, and I cannot say that it

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Speaker 2: is not true because some of the buildings of the

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Speaker 2: post office have been put on said have been sold

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Speaker 2: as a result, some of the basic infrastructure needs of

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Speaker 2: the people, they are no longer able to access them

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Speaker 2: because the buildings have been sold, which we are we

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Speaker 2: are at this point in engagement to say, let's stop

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Speaker 2: any any sales of property of the post office, because

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Speaker 2: those are the properties if the government comes in and

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Speaker 2: eject the capital, those are the properties that should be used.

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Speaker 2: Because again you're going to have a problem. You're selling

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Speaker 2: your properties now, but you are government to intervene and

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Speaker 2: rescue the post office. While the book government comes in

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Speaker 2: and rescue the post office, where are you going to operate?

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Speaker 2: Where you're going to operate, you still go and care

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Speaker 2: another expense now of going to go and rent out

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Speaker 2: in the same buildings that we have sold, which for

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Speaker 2: us doesn't make sense.

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Speaker 1: All right, Tammy, thank you very much for joining us

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Speaker 1: this afternoon. Tammy Zeleny, provincial secretary of the Communication Workers Union,

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Speaker 1: worried that the business fest you plan for the South

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Speaker 1: African Post Office could come at a heavy cost to

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Speaker 1: workers