Mark Barnes Quits South African Post Office

Almost four years after stepping in from private enterprise to try help save the floundering and disastrously inept South African Post Office, Mark Barnes has quit the post, citing differences on a future strategy for the structure of the SAPO.

In a statement today, the SAPO said it was with regret that it announced Barnes’s departure, but that it was “an amicable separation.” Barnes left the world of finance, where he worked with the Purple Group, three and a half years ago to take over the ailing SAPO.

The statement said that his leadership of the SAPO had led to its stabilisation. It was also during his tenure that the Postbank was started and – after much back and forth with the former minister of social development Bathabile Dlamini – that SAPO took over the disbursement of social grants.

The SAPO statement said that Barnes’s departure would not negatively impact the organisation’s operations because he was leaving behind a capable team. The COO, Lindiwe Kwele, would be interim CEO. Barnes would stay with the group for “a period” in order to facilitate the transition.