State-owned company facing bankruptcy paid R321 million to business rescue practitioners

The South African Post Office has paid its business rescue practitioners (BRPs), their consultants and support staff R321 million over the past three years. 

These payments have flowed despite the institution being on the edge of liquidation, with emergency funding given in January keeping it alive. 

The BRPs have made strong progress in trying to save the Post Office by cutting jobs, rationalising the branch network and trying to improve service delivery. 

However, their turnaround plan was based on receiving funding from the state in two tranches of R2.4 billion and R3.8 billion. 

The first R2.4 billion was paid out upon entering business rescue, but the R3.8 billion has not been forthcoming as the National Treasury shows state-owned enterprises tough love. 

Minister Solly Malatsi said the BRPs and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies have come up with a new Corporate Plan to save the Post Office without the R3.8 billion. 

The department has transferred around R150 million from its own resources to the Post Office to ensure it can keep its doors open and implement the plan. 

To maintain some level of service delivery, the Post Office is set to engage heavily in public-private partnerships. 

“These initiatives focus on the repurposing of some of SAPO’s properties and leveraging them to be able to generate revenue in the short to medium term,” the Minister said. 

“Some of these initiatives will require time before tangible results can be realised, particularly due to the dilapidated state of portions of SAPO’s infrastructure that require refurbishment.”

The department and BRPs believe that the Post Office is now able ot operate on a commercially solvent basis. 

This comes after significant job cuts and branch rationalisation, which have helped the Post Office slash its historical debt to R440 million from around R9 billion. 

However, it is still unable to invest in upgrading its infrastructure, IT systems, and property. This ensures the institution’s service delivery continues to falter. 

Payments to BRPs and consultants 

Questions have been raised about how much the BRPs are being paid and, in particular, how much money has been spent on consultants to turn around the post office.

BRPs are highly skilled, experienced individuals, which necessitates a relatively high salary. However, there are questions as to the value of consultants and whether this indicates a lack of capacity within the state and the Post Office.

The Post Office has two BRPs, Anoosh Rooplal and Juanito Damons, who Malatsi revealed have been paid R13.6 million over the past three financial years. 

However, given that there are only two BRPs, they require a large number of support staff and consultants, Malatsi explained.

“The implementation of the business rescue plan would have been practically impossible for the two BRPs to execute alone,” Malatsi said. 

“This necessitated the acquisition of the required resources by the BRPs to ensure both the effective implementation of the business rescue plan and the continuation of operations.” 

Malatsi noted that the BRPs appointed support staff comprising specialists within the practitioners’ firms, alongside consultants. 

As a whole, the support staff and consultants were paid R77.1 million in 2023/24, R107.5 million in 2024/25, and R65.5 million in 2025/26. 

This equals a total paid to these individuals of R250.1 million. Including the payments to the BRPs, this brings the overall total to R321 million. 

Malatsi explained that the support staff included tax, labour, legal, financial, operational, and actuarial experts to assist the BRPs. 

“These individuals were split across various workstreams to support and enable key operational functions of the business,” Malatsi said.

Little detail was given regarding the appointment of consultants to assist the BRPs in the process, with Malatsi saying they are appointed as and when required. 

External service providers not available within the practitioners’ firms, including labour law firms as well as civil and criminal attorneys, have also been appointed. 

These were needed to assist with the management and facilitation of CCMA referrals, as well as new and pending matters before the Labour Court and other ongoing legal proceedings against the Post Office.

“Their continued involvement remains necessary to defend these matters and mitigate the risk of adverse outcomes, including attachment orders, default judgments and summary judgments,” Malatsi said. 

“This is particularly important given the volume and complexity of the cases, which exceed what the BRPs could reasonably manage on their own.”