FREE DAILY EMAIL

Date : 09/10/2003
Source: Department of Communications
Title: Matsepe-Casaburri: Message to World Post Day celebration


MESSAGE FROM THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, DR IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI, TO THE PEOPLE OF THE NORTHERN CAPE, AT THE CELEBRATION OF WORLD POST DAY, Galeshewe, Kimberley, 9 October 2003

Programme Director, Mr S Dlamini
Members of the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature,
MECs, Members of the Sol Plaatje Municipality,
Representatives of the South African Post Office and the Department of Communications,
People of Kimberley and of the Northern Cape,
Distinguished Guests:

I am sorry I cannot be with you in the Northern Cape on this important occasion as we celebrate World Post Day. Unfortunately, I have had to travel to India to accompany the President on a State Visit and to visit projects relevant to the work of my Ministry and Department.

World Post Day is important for the people of the world because on this day we recognise the work of the Universal Postal Union that was founded in 1874 to encourage co-operation and development within the postal sector on a global scale. We are one of 189 countries who are part of the Universal Postal Union. We also use this opportunity to look at our achievements in attaining universal postal service in our country.

As South Africans, we have come a long way from the early days of post in the 17th century and even earlier, when postal stones were used by passing ships as temporary post offices. Then the names of ships and the date of visits were engraved on stones and they remain to this day as evidence of early postal services during the early colonial period. More than three hundred years later and after we have done away with apartheid and colonialism which divided our people, we are extending the reach of postal services by providing postal services to South Africa's people in post offices around the country. We are using these places called post offices not only for the posting of letters, but also to enable South Africans to enter the global information age on a mass scale and to become modern citizens of a rapidly globalising and modernising world.

In this context, postal services are important in that through extending these, we are take postal services in general and the South African Post Office (SAPO) in particular to all parts of South Africa, especially to poor and rural areas and to townships where people have not had access to these services before.

Through so doing, we are making it easier for the sending of letters, so as to overcome the vast distances between one place and another, to enable people to communicate better with each other and to become more united through the establishment of firm networks. In a country where so many of our people depend on postal services to communicate and interact, SAPO becomes central in bringing these services to the people.

A recent Amendment of the Postal Services Act enables us to provide a basic and reliable letter service at an affordable price with items of less than one kilogram such as a small letter, post card or parcel charged at a uniform price irrespective of where it is sent from. This means that whether you come from a small town in the Northern Cape or from the economic heartland of Gauteng, we treat your mail equally and do not discriminate between those sent from far-flung or disadvantaged areas and those sent from the middle of a city with a highly developed network. The law also gives everyone the right to this basic postal service and obliges the post office to render this service to everyone.

SAPO is also bringing addresses to all our people, because we acknowledge that without an address it is impossible for citizens to participate in economic life and social activities. At present, we have a backlog of nearly 4 million citizens who do not have an address. Our task is to ensure that all these people get addresses and can become fully part of our new communications networks.

The post office is also becoming a centre through which people can access basic government services and thus makes accessing these services easier. The Post Bank brings banking to ordinary citizens and should encourage the formation of SMMEs, so that small businesses can save, pool together their funds and grow into bigger and stronger enterprises, thus building local economies.

The post office also becomes important to bring all of South Africa's people into the Information Age and the new global economy through providing email and Internet services. The new citizen's post offices and the provision of postal infrastructure to Multi-purpose Community Centres enable people to use the new information and communications technologies to access a wider range of services and information and to familiarise all South Africans with the new tools of the new global economy.

In this way, as South Africa we are being true to the theme of this year's World Post Day and that is to: Think globally and act locally.

This is also the message I would like to give to the people of the Northern Cape in general and Galeshewe in particular. This region is one that is rich in history and has been the centre of diamond mining in this country. Yet it is also an area of great poverty with huge discrepancies in wealth between rich and poor areas. Galeshewe is a place that has been targeted for development and is in need of sustained projects that encourage job creation and generate ongoing activities for the youth in this area. This poses challenges for the people of this area and for government:

* The Post Office becomes important in this regard, because it can be used as a site for community activity.

* This region is one that belongs to the earliest peoples with among the oldest languages in southern Africa and the challenge is to use modern technologies at Post Offices to preserve these for future generations and to instil pride in what we have achieved as Africans.

* The challenge for our youth is how to strengthen youth activities through email networks and having your own websites.

* The challenge for small businesses is how to use the new technology to build SMMEs and create new markets for goods.

* In the Northern Cape, there are 11 Public Information Terminals (PITs) - how can these be used creatively to improve and enhance community life. The aim of the PIT is also to create a communication infrastructure through which the public will have access to government information and services such as government forms and websites and also to access email, internet, business and educational services.

* The importance is to forge relationships and firm partnerships with SAPO and government in using access to new services to bringing about a better quality of life for all.

In this way, together we bridge the digital and knowledge divide and enter the Information Age through thinking globally and acting locally - through building local structures and improving community capacity in ICTs so that we have vast communication networks that enable us to build a better town, country and a better world. In this way, we can use technology for our own development. Government is also deploying these technologies to foster empowerment of communities.

New technological facilities in the postal industry are important factor for economic development. They also assist in advancing sustainable human development. The technological revolution should not to be regarded as a threat to be feared. It upgrades the functioning of postal communication in order to meet required business standards and to provide services more efficiently. They help us to ensure that postal services meet universal service obligations. They also allow us to mobilise resources to build our people's skills through consolidating and expanding existing levels of technical expertise.

The celebrations today consist of a range of activities: the issue of World Post Day stamps, the demonstration of services provided by the Post Office, and exhibitions by various provincial government departments, the Department of Communications and the Post Office.

I would like to thank all exhibitors for their participation in World Post Day 2003 and SAPO in particular for their hard work in making this day a success.

Last but not least, I would like to thank the postal workers who are cycling from Jericho post office in Brits to Durban and conscientising youth along the way in a bid to compete with a letter posted through normal postal service channels to see who gets first to their destination. I wish them well along their journey.

As South Africans certainly we have come a long way from the age of stones and rocks operating as post offices. We have moved beyond only a certain privileged few having access to postal services and are moving rapidly to mass access to postal services and to the fulfilment of universal obligations.

Together let us make use of postal services and new technologies to build our local and national economies and to strengthen our contribution as South Africa's people to world culture and development.

I thank you.

(Ms Phumelele Ntombela-Nzimande, the Deputy Director-General of the Postal Business Unit, delivered the speech on behalf of the Minister.)
Issued by: Department of Communications
9 October 2003

SPONSORED BY

Advanced