MAKHADO (LOUIS TRICHARDT) - “Can I also have my municipal account sent to the throwaway box holder?” was the question of a concerned pensioner who picked up 41 accounts thrown away at the post boxes of the post office.

A similar incident was reported in January this year when a pensioner scraped twenty television accounts out of the throwaway box.

The branch manager of the post office, in the past denoted as the postmaster, Mr Dries Rossouw said on June 14 that once post was distributed into the public post boxes it was through the system and not under the jurisdiction of the post office anymore. The owner of a post box is the only one who can remove post from his box. On the public side of the post boxes members of the public cannot be prevented from discarding the envelopes that they don’t want to take home.

In the case of the 41 envelopes, they all contained water and electricity accounts addressed to different consumers, but addressed to P O Box 382 Makhado.

Mr Rossouw said that there were rental conditions for the postal boxes. The lessee of the post box undertakes to return all unknown post to the post office. If a client finds post in his box that does not belong to him he should draw cancelling lines through the address and write Unknown or Return to Sender on the envelope before returning it to the Post Office.

It apparently happens often in certain areas that post box owners put their post box at the disposal of a number of people, thus explaining the 41 different accounts sent to the same post box. It seemed that all the accounts were for consumers in Tshiozwi.

Mr Rossouw said that he contacted the owner of the post box and reminded him of the rental condition that you have to return unknown post to the Post Office. He also gave permission that the pile of envelopes, which was dropped off at the newspaper’s office, be returned to the municipality’s Assistant Manager: Department of Finances, Ms Vhutshilo Tshikhudo.

Ms Tshikhudo said that she was not aware of this problem. The municipality use the addresses recorded by the consumers.

“I am aware of it that people often have the custom to use the post box of a school, church or businessman,” she said. They were not that much concerned about losing money with accounts that do not reach the consumers.

“Prepaid meters will not result in a loss for the municipality and most people use prepaid meters these days,” was the comment. Consumers do not get their prepaid cards recharged before having paid their basic charges.

Among the first few envelopes, however, there was one who was in the excess of R700 in arrears. There the credit control system of the municipality would come into effect.

Consumers have the responsibility to supply the municipality with their correct addresses, and no, unfortunately there is no throwaway box for responsible citizens. Accounts cannot be abandoned forever and eventually have to be settled.