The postal services in South
Africa are divided into the Government run South African Post Office (also
called SAPO) and the private courier services that many courier companies offer.
There are fairly defined rules that have been laid down for each of the specific
sectors to ensure that there is no conflict and that the two sectors are
differentiated in terms of offerings.
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In the course of laying down the rules there are certain restrictions that have
been mentioned. Courier services offered in South Africa need to operate under
these guidelines in order to be able to operate legally in the country. While
the South African postal department also supplies courier services, the private
companies tend to be better organized, faster and more dependable. According to
the WTO Secretariat 2000, courier services are not the domain of the postal
service.
The South African postal services offer courier services through three of their
subsidiaries – Speed Services Couriers, Express Postal Services (XPS) and Docex.
These companies differ in the type of services that they provide. Speed Services
Couriers provides overnight services for parcels that weigh up to 30 kilograms.
XPS is based on the FedEx model and delivers freight goods to over 3200
destinations. It generally takes consignments larger than 30 kilograms and also
accepts hazardous materials in insulated containers. Docex is a service that is
mainly meant for important documents and small parcels and focuses on the legal,
medical and travel industry.
For the private courier service providers it is mandatory to have a license.
These operators also need to be registered companies to be able to provide
courier services in South Africa. The Postal Service Act also does not leave any
scope for private courier services to operate in the area of delivering parcels
and documents that weigh less than a kilogram. This rule does not apply in
specific cases like unaddressed mail, exchange of documents for legal services
like pleadings, proceedings and affidavit, occasional letters delivered by an
individual, trade announcements, circulars, newspapers and periodicals.
Other than the above mentioned restrictions, companies that offer private
courier services are free to operate in whatever manner that they deem suitable.
This means that the private courier company can operate in an environment in
which they can price their services accordingly.
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DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this article is the opinion of the
Author and should not be taken as advice.