[ad_1]
The board of the South African Post Office has denied that Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams interfered in a lucrative R2.1 billion e-commerce platform tender.
Independent Media’s special investigations unit recently reported that a senior official from the SA Post Office accused Ndabeni-Abrahams of disobeying acquisition processes.
“Ndabeni-Abrahams introduced businessman and president of private equity firm Convergence Partners, Andile Ngcaba, to the entity’s executives in an alleged offer to partner on a highly lucrative R2.1 billion e-commerce platform,” it said .
According to the report, “Ndabeni-Abrahams introduced Ngcaba to the board outside of normal procurement processes and they were asked to partner with him and his company on the e-commerce platform called Combat COVID-19 Africa.”
Ndabeni-Abrahams and Ngcaba have denied the claim, and the South African post board has now entered the fray via a press release.
The SA Post Board said it has taken note with concern of the article published in The Star of October 2, 2020 entitled ‘Ndabeni-Abrahams accused of infiltrating businessman in R2.1 billion bid‘.
“The SA Post Office can categorically state that at no time did the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies interfere in the SA Post Office’s hiring processes in any way,” he said.
The Post Office said it is investigating the source of the malicious information sent to the media, which appears to be a disgruntled senior official.
“It should also be noted that at no time did the author of the article approach the SA Post Office to confirm the baseless allegations made in the article,” he said.
SA Post Office E-Commerce Plans
The South African Post Office sets its future in electronic commerce and is working with the Universal Postal Union (UPU) on this project.
The UPU is a United Nations agency that coordinates postal policies among member countries.
It has developed an e-commerce solution for the cross-border market called the ECOMPRO package, which aims to accelerate the development of e-commerce in the domestic postal sectors.
The minimum specifications of this program include a maximum package weight of 30 kg and a delivery time of five days.
The South African Post Office has not confirmed whether it would implement this program as set out by the UPU to enable its e-commerce platform.
The SA Post Office previously said It expects e-commerce and financial services to comprise a significant portion of its revenue by 2030.
Former SAPO CEO Mark Barnes said the platform would focus on the export of products made in South Africa.
“We will focus on exporting South African made products on our platform,” said Barnes.
“It is in a personal interest of the Post Office to have a platform that promotes exports because the way the postal revenue works is that the origin of the postal event gets most of the revenue.”
Now Read: Big SA Post Office E-Commerce Platform To Launch In March
[ad_2]
