SAPO surviving on month-to-month basis after Treasury rejects bailout request - business rescue practitioner

JOHANNESBURG - The South African Post Office (SAPO)'s business rescue practitioner, Anoosh Rooplal, said their plan was surviving on a month-to-month basis after Treasury turned down its request for a R3.8 billion boost.  

The cash-strapped South African Post Office was placed under business rescue in July 2023 to prevent it from going into liquidation.  

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Rooplal said they had anticipated receiving the money earlier in 2024.  

He said they'd reduced the entity's debt from approximately R8.7 billion to about R400 million through austerity measures.  

"Unfortunately, we had to retrench 4,800 people but that resulted in R1.2 billion of annual savings that is accruing to the Post Office in the future. The R3.8 billion is really to pay the last tranche of this that we owe to creditors, which is about R500 million and the rest of the money, the bulk of that, is to upgrade infrastructure and we need R1 billion of that for working capital. So, what this does is it allows us to put a debt-free entity set of assets back into the hands of government."