The dysfunction of SA Post Office branches, whose systems are often offline and unreliable, has meant that social grant beneficiaries have relied more on grocery retailers and ATMs of commercial banks to withdraw their social grant payments. The SA Postbank is primed as the new paymaster.

A restructured SA Post Office will no longer be responsible for paying social grants to millions of beneficiaries after doing so since 2018 at a major financial loss and will cede this function to the SA Postbank.

This is one of many proposals contained in a plan to restructure the financial and operational affairs of the SA Post Office under a business rescue process -- a plan yet to be approved by the creditors of the state-owned entity (SOE) and the government.

The SA Post Office has been under business rescue since July, a process that is an attempt to rehabilitate financially distressed companies by restructuring their affairs. The objective is to enable the company to continue operating while being restructured, saving some jobs in the process.

Since November 2018, social grant beneficiaries under the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) have received their grant payments at SA Post Office branches throughout South Africa.

However, the dysfunction of SA Post Office branches, whose systems are often offline and unreliable, has meant that Sassa beneficiaries have relied more on grocery retailers and ATMs of commercial banks to withdraw their social grant payments, paying more in banking and withdrawal fees.

The SA Post...