Note to Editors: Please find the attached soundbite in English and Afrikaans by DA Cllr Portia Burrell.
Following complaints from community members, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Matlosana visited the Stilfontein Post Office to find a dilapidated building that is severely understaffed.
The state of the Post Office’s infrastructure shows that the building has been neglected and not received maintenance or upgrades in years.
The Post office has only three staff members; a Post Master and two postal workers available to service the whole Stilfontein area. These three staff members have to serve at least 1000 relief grants recipients. The elderly and pregnant women are forced to queue for hours in the blazing sun without water or a place to relieve themselves as there are no toilet facilities for the public. Please see photo here and here.
The Postmaster informed the DA that sometimes he has to call the local SAPS to assist with crowd control measures and to ensure that queuing beneficiaries adhered to strict social distancing protocols.
Community members also complain about the mistreatment that they receive from the workers who are often rude and unhelpful to their enquiries. The staff are constantly on leave with no substitute to fill in for them.
Some of the grant relief recipients said they still haven’t received payments and are in the dark about when payment will be made, and the Post Office staff fail to give them more information on the status of these payments.
The Post Office as a government entity subscribes to the principles of Batho Pele and among these is that citizens should be treated with courtesy and consideration and receive quality service delivery.
The DA will write to the Post Office Provincial office in Potchefstroom requesting that they ensure that the Stilfontein branch is capacitated with enough staff members to assist the community. We have also requested clarity regarding the lack of upgrades to the Post Office’s infrastructure such as the lack of toilets and facilities for the public.
To assist community members, the DA with the help of community members set up a soup kitchen table outside the Post Office serving food to try and ease the burden of standing in the long queue for hours. Please see photo here and here.
