DHL uses South African Post Office.
Certain items are not available locally but can be ordered from overseas. About 5 years ago I ordered an item from a  store in New York using UPS for delivery. UPS in turn uses South African Post Office to deliver items locally. I am still waiting for that parcel. 

Subsequently DHL managed to deliver a number of items from US suppliers successfully. Recently I placed an order for a small item at a photography store in the USA and chose DHL as the courier as I considered them to be a reliable company. What I did not realise is that for  DHL Saver and DHL Global Mail options they now also use South African Post Office  to deliver parcels in South Africa. This has not always been the case. If I knew that I would have used a different company.

The item I ordered arrived in South Africa on July 30th 2019 but to date (27-8-2019) it has not been delivered yet. When I contacted DHL they gave me Post Office telephone numbers and email addresses to contact. None of the telephone numbers seem to be working and I  held on for more than an hour without being able to speak to a post office operator. I have sent them two emails which to date remains unanswered.

Needless to say that if you choose an unreliable business partner your good name goes down the drain as your service is only as good as that of the weakest link. DHL does not want to take responsibility for the poor performance of the partner they chose. And frankly it is not my responsibility to talk to  South African Post. I feel that DHL has to find out why delivery has not taken place yet. I chose them as the courier and who they ask to take care of the final stage of delivery should not become my problem.

A DHL representative suggested that I put in a claim with the supplier. The problem with that is that if courier companies regularly fail to deliver items suppliers will get fed up  paying for lost items and they will  stop shipping to South Africa. There are number of companies who used to supply products to South African addresses but refuse to do so now.

I guess I will therefore just have to order and pay for the same item again and this time I'll use FedEx as they recently delivered an item from the same supplier in under a week. 