GALLO
IMAGES/RAPPORT/DEON
RAATH,
GALLO
IMAGES/BUSINESS
DAY/FREDDY
MAVUNDA
“WhenwewereawardedtheSassa
contract,peoplesaid,‘Youcan’teven
deliver letters – how can you deliver
money?’
“It was a big job to take on,” he admits.
“It wasn’t perfect when I left – we were
still learning. But we were getting there.
We were going to end up saving the state- and we were saving the people who rely
on that money.”
He points out the Net1 financial servic-
es group was making a fortune issuing
Sassa grants. Since the expiry of its Sassa
contract its revenue has reportedly de-
clined by 47% to $86,48 million (R1,
billion), down from $162,72m compared
with the same quarter last year.
Mark brought with him decades of fi-
nancial experience when he accepted
the Post Office job.
He’d served as an investment banker at
Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank,
as head of private equity firm Brait, and
as executive chairman of Purple Group,
an investment and trading solutions
company.
He knew he had a big responsibility on
his shoulders.
“If you drive a boat onto the rocks, they
don’t ask who sent you there, but who’s
driving. And you know the rocks because
you’ve been a captain of so many ships,”
tingtheatreand
t eres a car ioogist oinga transplant,
doyouthinktheownerofthehospital
hastherighttotellhimwhattodo?”
Intheendhehadtoomanypeopletell-
inghimwhattodoandit tookhim“half
a second”tomakehisdecisiontoquit.
“Youcan’temployanexpertandtell
themwhattodo.”H
E’SstillcommittedtoSouth
Africaanddeterminedto
playa roleinitsfuture.
“Iwanttobepartofthis
newworld,”Marksays.
“Mychildrenarehere,my
money’shere.It’snotgoinganywhere
andI’mnotgoinganywhere,”hesays.
“Thisismycountry.I wasbornhere
andI’lldiehere.”
Althoughhefeelshecould’vedone
moreinhisyearsasCEOofthePost
Office, he believes
he ultimately
achieved some-
thing.
“The thing I’ve
changed is how
people [who work at thePostOffice]feel
about themselves. We gave people the
prospect of financial prosperity.
“We changed a culture of failure, in
which success and effort were scorned.”
Mark says what the country needs is
time, trust, and “to hold hands to work
together”.
He also believes SOEs can’t keep onhanging hands. “At
ome point we’re going
o need someone with
he courage to say this
sn’t working. And the
nly way you can do
hat is through leader-
hip and common pur-
ose.”
Being the leader of an
OE isn’t a walk in the
ark, he acknowledges,
ut it has its rewards.
“At the end of the day
just an ordinary hu-
an being with flaws –
t I have a passion to
rve.”
He might raise his hand
the spirit of thuma mina
ain, but this time he’d
ve to get to play by his
n rules. Meanwhile, he
hopes the new interim Post Office CEO,
Lindiwe Kwele, will be given more space
to do the job.
But yes, he repeats, he still feels he
could’ve done more.
“The only person who had no regrets
was Frank Sinatra. I could’ve done it
smarter, quicker. And I failed to convince
them [of my vision].”
All is not lost, though, he adds. He
learnt more about business in the past
three years than in the previous 30 years.
“I went to the Post Office to teach and
ended up learning. But I’m not done yet.
I still want to be part of the solutions.”
Now that he has a bit of time on his
hands, Mark wants to write a book. He’s
also talking to various institutions about
getting involved with teaching.
“I also want to wander around Kom-
metjie beach [near Cape Town] where
nobodyknowsmy name, and spend time
with my six children.”
There’s a part of him
that wishes he’d stayed
at the Post Office to
make his plans a reali-
ty and he hopes it
eventuallysucceeds. “Because if it fails, I
would’ve failed too,” he reckons.
He says there are hundreds of people
likehimwithbusinessexperiencewho
arereadytostepupandsharetheir
expertise.
“And we’re for free. We’ve got money
already – we’re looking for higher-order
satisfaction.” S‘Weweresavingthe
people who rely on
that money’
Former Post Office CEO
Mark Barnes says he hope
the new acting CEO, Lindi
Kwele (RIGHT), will begive
more freedom to bringab
change at the beleaguered
had a fantastic workingrela ons p en
she was a group chief operatingofficer.you.co.za 29 AUGUST 2019 | (^19)