On HAYIBO today......................
SA Post Office to sell stolen Amazon products direct to public

PRETORIA. A day after US online retail giant Amazon announced that it was no longer offering South African customers standard postal delivery due to massive theft by SA Post Office employees, the post office has announced that it will sell cut-price books, DVDs and CDs direct to the public outside the back door of its branches nationwide.

According to a statement made by Post Office spokesman Gift Mkhize, the new retail outlets would operate on a cash-only, first-come first-served, don't-ask-don't-tell basis.

He added that for those customers who did not feel like queuing there would be "mobile franchises" parked near most branches, where the public was welcome to buy goods out of the boots of Post Office employees' cars.

Asked if the Post Office was ashamed at being the only postal service in Africa to be blacklisted by the US retail giant, Mkhize was defiant, saying that Amazon's bold branding on its packaging was to blame for the rampant pilfering.

"Those parcels have 'Amazon' written all over them," he said. "Our employees find this very provocative.

"Most of our staff are functionally illiterate, but over the years, handling many printed items, some of them have developed a rudimentary sense of lettering, and that big A and big Z are unmistakable."

He said that expecting Post Office staff not to pocket their clients' packages was "as naïve as expecting Members of Parliament not to fiddle their expense accounts".

According to Mkhize, the decision to sell merchandise outside the back door of branches had been made at board level, after initial anti-theft measures proved ineffective.

He said that a 2003 initiative to install metal detectors at staff entrances had been compromised when all the metal detectors were stolen by employees, who then sold them back to the Post Office, which subsequently lost them.

"It was very demoralizing," he said. "At least this way our employees feel like stakeholders in the whole process."

Meanwhile a police spokesman has admitted that postal theft is very difficult to tackle.

Superintendent Magda Siff said that the problem was compounded by the fact that Post Offices clerks traditionally moved "incredibly slowly".

"Anyone who has ever used a Post Office in South Africa knows that it takes up to twenty minutes for the sullen lady at Counter 4 to get off her stool, waddle into a back room, have a cup of tea and packet of tennis biscuits, and waddle back with the wrong parcel.

"During this time she has any number of opportunities to secret away DVDs and suchlike in her industrial-strength underwear."

She said new bras featuring heavy-duty underwires, high-tensile nylon straps and titanium clasps could cope with much greater loads.

"We're seeing small TVs, ant farms, box sets of Desperate Housewives. That kind of stuff."

She urged the public to report suspiciously rectangular breasts by calling the police's postal theft hotline at 1-800-LOS-DAAI-DOOS.

 

"Asked if the Post Office was ashamed at being the only postal service in Africa to be blacklisted by the US retail giant, Mkhize was defiant, saying that Amazon's bold branding on its packaging was to blame for the rampant pilfering.

"Those parcels have 'Amazon' written all over them," he said. "Our employees find this very provocative."


When later asked about the high incidence of rape in Africa Mkhize said that women were to blame for that as well.

"If you are a woman then you have ***** written all over you. Our men find that very provacative. When you appear in public you are really asking for a man to rape you. It is not a man's fault. He is only doing what you want him to do anyway. It's not a good as fu[king a cow or a goat but what is a man to do?"

 

Looks like the Onion could take a lesson in satire from HAYBIO. Do you suppose anyone was offended by that piece? And, in Africa, will there be lawyers involved? Over here they'd be lining up to get some of the action.

 

Trouble is, The postal ban is a fact.........Amazon won't post here anymore....
Hard to argue with a fact I'd guess no matter how good your lawdog is.........
As for the comments by Dao, we have some guys in this part of the world who make a career of wandering around with their foot in their mouth................
try "take a shower if you have HIV" .....YUP - it's almost like Ripley's...............

 

We have quite a number of people in the US who suffer chronic foot in mouth disease as well. I find myself in their number occasionally.