STAATSKOERANT, 24 JANUARIE 2014
No. 37261
amended licence sets a target of 2,3 million new addresses between the years 2012-2014.
In the financial year that ended on 31 March, 2012, 1199 273 addresses were rolled out to
first-time address owners against a target of 1195 690.
The address system is important for a number of reasons, including:
location finding for ambulance, fire, police and rescue services
geographical analysis and information about a city and its people, for instance as
conducted in the census
home and location addresses for easy communication and delivery
business and tax applications
provision of municipal services
maintenance and repair of water, electricity, sewerage and telephone systems
facilitation of law enforcement
4.6 Postal services in the digital age
The flow of mail has changed from a two-way communication process, to a one-way flow.
The mail business is increasingly moving towards 'pull' effects, that is, a customer or
business requests an item, rather than 'push' effects where a business or friend sends a
letter. The postal market can be viewed as moving away from social mail services, and
towards business and corporate mail, albeit with consumers on the receiving end of those
transactions. SAPO is uniquely placed to leverage on the vast network of postal outlets, fleet
of delivery vehicles and telecommunications infrastructure to offer integrated services such
as telecommunications, financial services and logistics.
SAPO's broadband infrastructure, depending on architecture and capacity, could be
leveraged to offer broadband services in rural and under-serviced areas, or to provide Wi-Fi
zones within a specified radius of the retail footprint.
4.7 Postal reform trends
The postal sector in most OECD countries remains dominated by a state-owned verticallyintegrated monopoly, still largely protected from the forces of competition.
Globally there is a trend towards greater corporatisation, commercialisation or privatisation
prior to liberalisation of the postal market. The general intention is to create a more efficient
governance structure for the postal operator particularly when it must compete with private
operators in a liberalised market.
The following are some of the conclusions and lessons from international postal reform:
Many countries have successfully undertaken reform;
Where postal monopolies have been eliminated this has led to commercial flexibility;
Reforms have frequently involved changes in the universal service obligation;
Many governments have removed universal service delivery from the postal service
itself and shifted it to another entity, such as the regulator;
The experience in countries that have eliminated their monopolies, such as New
Zealand and Sweden, suggests that universal service can still be maintained at
affordable prices without a delivery monopoly;.
Many reforms have included a mechanism for making the cost of providing universal
service explicit such as a universal service fund; and
Postal reform in some countries has included changes from government to private
ownership, as in Germany and Holland.
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