Insider reveals post office dilemma
Dozens of Boksburg residents claim that they are experiencing significant delays in mail and parcel delivery, apparently as a result of post office employees’ strike.
According to Malusi Fuphe, spokesperson for the SA Post Office, the delay is as a result of a staff shortage on the East Rand in their delivery section.
“However, following route changes, mail is now delivered daily to customers and the backlog in this workplace should be worked off in the next week or two,” says Fuphe.
He, however, denied it was because of a strike.
Despite the reassurances of Fuphe, residents in Boksburg, however, kept on telling the Advertiser that their mail delivery has been very poor, adding that they have gone several weeks without receiving their mail.
One of the residents who have gone without mail became so fed up and visited the Boksburg depot to find out what was happening.
“I found a few employees on duty and they were working more slowly and with less effort than usual,” said the resident who also described the Boksburg post office as the most unreliable mail delivery service in the region.
“I went inside the depot and found thousands of unsorted letters gathering dust on their shelves. I suppose this is their way of protesting,” added the complainant.
According to an employee at the affected branch, who wishes to remain anonymous, workers at the depot were recently on strike, creating backlogs and delays in mail delivery services.
The source said that the strike has been resolved, but more people have to be hired to ease their workload.
“Workers were trying to persuade the employer to agree to higher pay and better working conditions. It was a bad time, but it’s all past now.
“I don’t know why they are hiding it. Some people were even afraid to come to work because they were scared of being attacked by other employees who were on strike,” says the employee.
The source also alleged that the depot has been understaffed for a long time.
“We have been for a long time working without a supervisor and uniforms. Uniforms were only delivered on Friday, July 25. We were also told that a supervisor will only arrive on July 28, but I haven’t seen the new person yet.
Fuphe has added that efforts are being made to ensure that the workplace has adequate personnel and there is no strike. – @FanieBoksburg
Mail delivery on a daily basis???? Where? Definitely not in Ravensklip that’s for sure.
We haven’t received mail since May in Ravensklip. At the end of July I went to the mail depot in Boksburg to see if any of our mail was there. I got 2 statements.
I have collected mail from the depot several times over the last 2 years as they seem to have this issue every couple of months. This time however the amount of unsorted mail was alarming. There were boxes and bags standing everywhere.
The 5 staff that were there when I walked in were not doing anything except standing around talking to each other.
Even if they were understaffed there should have been some mail going out on delivery. What I saw is that the mail for the last couple of months had not been touched!
My mother has an international magazine subscription where she should get a magazine weekly. We are now half way through August and she has received one magazine since May.
A week ago we got a mail delivery of one magazine and the dstv magazine dated …. you guessed it May!
Where is all our outstanding mail and these daily deliveries that Mr. Fuphe claims are being done.
I don’t forsee them ever sorting this problem out.
No wonder Amazon is no longer willing to send goods to SA via our postal “lack of” service.
Regards
Sandra
Nice read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing some research on that. And he actually bought me lunch as I found it for him smile Thus let me rephrase that Thanks for lunch! kgeddckgbkgedgda