The account which follows seeks to reflect on the effective collapse of the South African Post Office (Sapo) as one indicator of the general demise of public amenities and services.
This is not news, particularly in light (sic) of the debilitating electricity interruptions of the past 15 years and the imminent widespread deprivation of the reliable provision of safe drinking water in urban areas.
The trigger for this reflection is my recent role as a co-editor (with Tanya Wilson) of a collection titled In These Mountains (November 2024, Pentrich Press) of published poems, diary entries and essays written by the late Stephen Watson on his experiences in the Cederberg.
Having written and edited more than a dozen books over the past 40 years, I knew of the statutory obligation on all publishers to supply one free copy of each book published in this country to all the Legal Deposit Libraries.
The Legal Deposit Act (54 of 1997) continues the practice established many decades ago (and significantly also in every Bantustan under apartheid, each of which had an equivalent statute) of designating one library in each of the four pre-1994 provinces (the National Library “campus” in both Cape Town and Pretoria, and the municipal libraries in Bloemfontein and Pietermaritzburg) plus the Library of Parliament and the National Film, Video and Sound Archives (for such media) as places of legal deposit.
The purpose of this (perhaps historically quaint yet vital) legal obligation is to ensure that a copy of every publication is available at some relatively accessible place for perusal by the public as well as to provide as complete a record as possible of documents published in South Africa, our “national documentary heritage”.
In compliance with the law, I duly emailed a completed form to the relevant staff member at each of these libraries and then inserted the printed version of that form together with a copy of the book into an envelope, carefully addressed to the street address provided by each library.
Here is where the connection to the Sapo began.
Knowing that my local post office had closed some years ago, I went to the nearest one to my home, which I had used about a year ago. On arrival at the shopping centre, a security guard told me that this PO had closed several months ago.
Eye-watering cost
I then approached a private postal service provider to establish its charges for delivery of each of the books, only to be told that local delivery of the book would cost R185, plus a levy of R265 because it was being directed to a government entity, a total of R450!
Delivery beyond Cape Town would be even more expensive. I was told that the government had applied this levy to all such postal items delivered to any of its offices by this private postal service; quite why this was necessary remains a mystery.
Given that In These Mountains retails for R230, my astonishment can be appreciated.
I duly refused such private service and emailed all the legal deposit librarians to share my predicament: how was I to arrange delivery to them, especially those beyond Cape Town?
I was very grateful when one of the legal deposit officials advised me to approach the Cape Town Post Office in the CBD from where I could mail all the copies. After an hiatus caused by end-of-year preoccupations, I drove to the city and found a parking space after some circling of the block where the General Post Office (GPO), as I always knew it, was located.
The kind parking marshal agreed to allow me to pay on leaving, as I explained that I had no idea how long the queue in the GPO would be. She appeared a little perplexed, and when I asked her to direct me to the main entrance to the GPO, she told me that the building was now a branch of the leading supermarket chain in the country.
Incredibly (maybe born of experience?) she knew where to find a functioning post office in the city and directed me to drive to the junction of Loop and Pepper Streets. There, in a nondescript building with little signage, I discovered a branch of the Sapo and transacted my business at the princely sum of R15.45 per copy, a real bargain (although I have yet to receive acknowledgement of safe receipt from the Legal Deposit librarians).
I confirmed with the helpful assistant that this was indeed the “last post office functioning in Cape Town”, although this assessment is presumably confined to the CBD.
In relief on my way home, I fell to thinking of what this all means for us as a society, hence this little story, if only to alert people to the location of the only functioning post office in central Cape Town.
I have heard of two other suburban POs still operating but have not verified such information. I have no doubt that an indignant spokesperson for the Sapo (does such an officer still serve?) might issue a statement cataloguing all the functioning POs and their addresses throughout the country: IF such a response appears, that in itself would be an unanticipated triumph and a service to the broader public in my view.
Tragic reflection
Yet the impact of the absence of all that the existence of a “local post office” throughout urban and rural areas implies for social services for ALL inhabitants of this country (much like the necessity of an efficient, effective, and uncorrupt Dept of Home Affairs) is a tragic reflection on the priorities, capacity, and responsiveness of those who have exercised public power over the past three decades.
Although semi-privatised over this period, and although central government has provided financial bail-outs from time to time, hard questions need to be asked and answered both by those who appointed the people to run the Sapo as well as the relevant ministers accountable for its viability.
In telling this story, I am naturally deeply aware of the profound impact of the electronic media on the need for physical forms of communication – the postal system, yet some documentary items cannot be reduced to electronic format, and many countries beyond our borders maintain a postal system which is used to send items to South Africans here at home.
In addition, the local post office meant so much more to most communities and could have been repurposed for many functions (including for example the payout of social grants on which such a large percentage of our population survives, and the issuing of ID documents) which may have secured their viability.
Perhaps if this piece is drawn to the attention of the relevant ministers (of Communications and Digital Technologies for the Sapo, and of Arts, Culture and Sport for the Legal Deposit system) or one of their officials, that may serve to trigger some form of remedial action, maybe the slowing of the total disappearance of a public postal service.
The fact that the incumbents of both ministries are not members of the ANC, may perversely act as an inspiration to show up the former regime.
I know that many will argue that I remain hopelessly naïve and optimistic, but I do not subscribe to such a negative outlook on the prospects of resuscitating the delivery of such a basic service to the broad population. Any South African over the age of 20 will appreciate the integral role as a community-centred resource played by the local post office, no matter where in this country they were raised. If no postal service exists, the requirements of the Legal Deposit Act will be ignored, damaging our cultural heritage.
Let us raise our voices and agitate to demand the restoration of the postal service and the preservation of the local PO as signs of the public commitment to affordable and reliable service delivery. DM