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Sunday Times Business Times reports that the Council for Medical Schemes has secured an order from the North Gauteng High Court for the curatorship of MediPos, the medical aid provider for SA Post Office (SAPO) employees.
This comes after years of financial difficulties at SAPO, which has failed on many occasions to pay employee medical aid contributions to the medical aid provider on time. In October last year, the entity was ordered to pay R4.5m in contributions to MediPos by the Labour Court after litigation from the trade union Solidarity. By November, it failed to pay contributions again. The curatorship comes as Sapo seeks to cut salary spending, including through job cuts. SAPO spokesperson Johan Kruger said they had been looking to end the “in-house” provision of medical aid benefits to employees and were looking to give employees the freedom to choose their own providers. He also indicated that although post-retirement medical aid benefits were stopped in 2005, the liability of those who were already in the system was high and only grew after they added beneficiaries over the years. “Over the past 11 years, Sapo has covered these post-retirement medical aid benefits to the tune of R1.3nn. This liability has to be removed from the balance sheet, hence the buy out process (cash amounts offered to the holder to stop the medical aid) has started,” he indicated.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Khulekani Magubane at Sunday Times (subscriber access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page