POST OFFICES around the country, draped in christmas lights and tinsel, are clearly bursting with joy at the festive season prospects. But while it seems lawyers around the country are eager to return the favour, the Post Office might not be so keen to accept either of the two gifts that were stuffed down its chimney last week.

The first was a R60m damages award against by the Pretoria High Court it over a biometric contract it simply decided to cancel.

The second was easily the most significant in the Post Office’s history: a summons that landed on its doorstep for a gigantic R1,3bn over a contract it signed with Nasasa Cellular – a joint venture between the National Stokvels association and Glocell.

For new CEO Motshoanetsi Lefoka (pictures here with Post Office chairwoman Vuyo Mahlati), this is no small poisoned challice to inherit, and how she resolves these matters will be a key test of her leadership skills.

When it comes to the R1,3bn summons, the sheer scale of this claim means that for every month that goes past before the claim is settled, Nasasa Cellular will claim an extra R17m in interest from the Post Office – R204m in a year.

Now, while the Post Office is particularly adept at delaying dealing with its legal headaches, the financial consequences of this ticking clock should spur it into action, if it cares at all about splurging R17m a month in taxpayer’s money, that is.

The summons was served on the Post Office last week, but it should have seen this coming.

After all, the deal was signed by former CEO Maanda Manyatshe in September 2004, and would have seen Nasasa Cellular provide cellular services in the 2000 Post Office’s around the country.

But even though the Post Office would have got a cut of the profits, it failed to follow-through on its side of the deal, and signed contracts with MTN, Vodacom and Cell-C instead.

In September, Judge Stanley Sapire ruled that the Post Office’s handling of the Nasasa Cellular contract “lacked commercial morality”, and ruled that the Post Office had indeed broken its obigatons.

Sapire said “it soon became apparent that (the Post Office) was not negotiating in good faith” and had “no intention of honouring its obligations”.

The next obvious step was for Nasasa Cellular to issue a summons, which it did this week, but while initial estimates suggest that the amount in question would be around R650m, the final figure on the table is more than double that.

Now, Nasasa Cellular says it lost out on R496,5m on net profits, R114m in bills it paid to get the contract off the ground, R284m for the subscriber base it would have built up, and another R426,2m for “ongoing revenue” after the Post Office deal would have expired after five years.

While Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri mulls over the summons, she might want to take stock of the fact that by breaching the agreement, the Post Office has also lost out on R153m in “commissions” it would have got from Nasasa Cellular.

Crucially, this pushes up the potential liabilities for the Post Office to just under R2bn mark, if you add the R1,3bn claim to the R60m biometric claim, a R269m damages claim from former CEO Maanda Manyatshe, and another R250m odd over a transport logistics deal with Cade Transport.

It hardly needs to be said this is more than four times the R431m it made in operating profits last year.

The Post Office now needs to file a notice at court saying it wants to defend this action: given the frenetic speed at which its legal expenses are racing, the institution can hardly afford to keep its head buried in the sand much longer.