Limpopo Department of Labour plans upgrades
“After several complaints from the community we have come to the realisation that our offices in town need attention. We have heard the community and taken their advice,” said Mr Johannes Mokou, spokesman for the Limpopo Department of Labour, in an interview with the newspaper.
BURGERSFORT – He said the department scanned the area to see what the needs of the people were and decided to upgrade the offices to a main branch. “Our offices in town used to be a satellite of the main one in Jane Furse. We swapped this around as the town became an economic hub,” said Mokou.
The department then apparently upgraded their manpower and IT systems to meet the increasing demands of the area. “We currently have five client-service officers and deploy three of four more from Polokwane every Wednesday and Thursday to assist. This has proven to be successful and until this office shows that it can operate on its own, this won’t change,” added Mokou.
He said in the past people had to queue for hours and claims would go unanswered for long periods of time as the demands had increased drastically in the past couple of years. “These problems however are in the past and our only issue now is to upgrade or move our premises to accommodate the increasing numbers,” said Mokou.
He added the department wanted to educate the public about what they called “work and draw”. “This is when a person still claims UIF, unemployment funds after finding a job. If they find another job within a month or two they simply refuse or sometimes forget to cancel their claims. This is a criminal offence,” he said.
This could have negative consequences for the offender. “If and when the department finds out that a person is claiming UIF and is in fact employed they can do one of three things. Firstly, they can contact your current employer and deduct the money from your current paycheck. Secondly, they can open a criminal case against you and thirdly the department can disqualify you from claiming UIF funds in the future,” Mokou added.
He concluded by saying the department viewed this in a very serious light as it was in arrears nationally by more than R5 million rand due to this issue.
