Peter Bruce, veteran South African newspaper editor and commentator, interviews the country's social and political leaders and experts in a weekly effort to explain what is actually going on in this complicated country. Bruce's interviews are about making events easy to understand for people with little time to listen.
How did it all go wrong? Former South African Post Office CEO Mark Barnes tells Peter Bruce is this final episode of their three-part series of his stewardship of the Post Office how he tried to take on local courier companies and had been talking to the Chinese, hoping that with mogul Jack Ma’s Alibaba they could create a South African version of Amazon. But then, out of the blue, the Government announced it was going to spin the Post Bank out of the Post Officer. Barnes had no warning. President Cyril Ramaphosa ignored his letters so he tracked him down to his office in Cape Town. The Cabinet had decided, Ramaphosa told him, and that was that. He resigned a day later. An offer later to buy the Post Office for R5bn (its net asset value when he left) with the staff owning 10% and the government 40% was completely ignored and the Post Office, stripped of its bank, has continued to decline. And the Post Bank still doesn’t have a banking license.
29 Jun 2026
Death of the Post Office (Part 2)
Former South African Post Office CEO Mark Barnes tell Peter Bruce, in the second episode of their three-part Podcasts From the Edge Special, what he found when he first walked into his office at Post Office headquarters in Pretoria in January 2016. An early and curt meeting with SAPO union leaders on Day1. “And they said, and we've got 10 demands. And they reamed off these things. We demand this and we demand that. And I said, but I tell you what, if you want to come back tomorrow and you want to have an adult discussion with me, which talks about our common interest and the people that work here, I'll order sandwiches and I'll pour the tea. And then we can cut a deal. And they came back the next day and we never, ever fought again.”
22 Jun 2026
Death of the Post Office (Part 1)
Listen in as banker, financier, entrepreneur and former Post Office CEO Mark Barnes tells Peter Bruce the story of his appointment as CEO of the South African Post Office in 2016, its recovery from constant State bail-outs and and his sudden exit in mid-2019 when President Cyril Ramaphosa, without warning, spun out the Post Bank and, with it, the SAPOs future as a viable business. In Part 1 Barnes recalls his recruitment and his plans for turning a desperate but vital State institution around.
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