Chairperson, hon members, comrades, distinguished quests, good afternoon. It is my brief to share with you the situation of the SA Post Office in this Budget Vote debate. Before I proceed, let us call to mind the words of our honoured comrade Mr Ahmed Kathrada on the eve of his release from life imprisonment in 1989. On the Saturday night of 14 October, when prison officers said to him that they had just received a fax which said he was to be released the next day, which was a Sunday, his first question was, "What is a fax?" This statement demonstrates that the world of communication has changed dramatically since his arrest in the 60s.
The cornerstone of the national policy for the postal sector is the provision of a universal service at an affordable price, and to provide essential postal delivery services. Some of the major achievements of our Post Office are as follows: partnering with the Department of Health to distribute antiretroviral medicine to hospitals; launching "postboxes for all", which is aimed at giving each household a postal address throughout South Africa, no matter how remote the households are; introducing a new system of postal addressing; and a system of postal codes that complies with international best practice, which makes South Africa the 17th country in the world to be Universal Postal Union, UPU, S42 compliant. In essence, postal codes refer to destination points rather than distribution points, as it is at present.
Furthermore, parcels are delivered within three to five days. If Mr Vadi, our chairperson, posted a letter to his relatives in India in the 60s, the letter would have taken almost a quarter of a year - three months - to reach its destination. Today, that letter reaches its destination within seven days.
Other achievements by the SA Post Office are as follows: introducing the track and tracing system that tells its customers exactly where posted mail items are in the system; recorded profits without compromising its universal service obligation; extended postal outlets in order to ensure that the SA Post Office complies with its licence agreement to provide one post office to every l0 000 South Africans; introducing Postbank, which is an option for pensioners to draw pension payouts at post offices; and introducing motor vehicle licence payments at 11 branches in the Limpopo province in March 2009. The motor licensing function is also available at selected post offices in KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and the Eastern Cape. The SA Post Office also facilitates the payment of traffic fines.
Furthermore, we installed a conveyor belt system at the Johannesburg International Mail Centre office of exchange in order to improve efficiencies and security in respect of international items, and introduced e-mail addresses for life for customers in accordance with their mandate from government. The Post Office contends that in a generic sense, the e- mail facility is also mail. The SA Post Office is committed to providing an alternative to those customers who prefer an electronic means of communicating. In this regard, the Post Office notifies customers of their postal items for collection from post offices by SMS or e-mail; it reminds customers to pay postbox rentals through SMS or e-mail; it allows customers to do a search for postal codes by SMS or e-mail; it allows customers to search for locations of Post Offices by SMS or e-mail; and provides for the payment of various postal services online, for example, the postbox rental. Villages are already enjoying the benefits of the electronic age. Almost 700 post offices have public Internet terminals.
We hereby confirm that the Post Office forms an essential component of the social and economic fabric of our country and our developing continent of Africa. The role of the Post Office has evolved considerably to take cognisance of the advances in technological developments, generally, and the ever dynamic nature of our society and their challenges, in particular. Among other things, this means that, more than ever before, the Post Office stands a bigger chance to provide our rapidly growing economy with integrated solutions in the crucial postal areas of mail, logistics, communications and government services.
The Post Office is government's preferred partner in service delivery, and it forms the biggest service network with more than 2 000 outlets nationwide spanning all nine provinces. This unparalleled network allows our Post Office to reach the urban and rural citizens located in the most remote parts of our country. It enables them to access such government services as grants, pensions and various critical documents like identity documents and driving licences.
In addition, we are ever mindful of the fact that the Post Office faces increasing challenges of the technological substitutions of globalisation, increasing pressures of deregulation, growing customer expectations and, above all, fierce competition. The SA Post Office is committed to building a better society, stronger communities and a prosperous economy through the services it provides. The ANC supports this Budget. Thank you. [Applause.]