Labour department makes progress with UIF payments

Lolo Madonsela
The Department of Employment & Labour (DoEL) has ramped up its payment of the Covid-19 Temporary Employer / Employee Relief Scheme (TERS), as well as normal benefits, to ensure that workers are not inconvenienced during the lockdown.
According to a statement released last week by DoEL Minister Thulas Nxesi, the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has disbursed R92 million, which brings the total paid to date (from April 16) to just under R1.8 billion.
He said these payments covered up to 790,150 workers and that in some cases, the claims have been paid within 24 hours of presentation.
Nxesi added that this was over and above the payments the fund has been paying with regards to ordinary benefits such as pregnancy and retrenchments, which have amounted to R804 million since the beginning of April.
“As enjoined by the president, we continue making sure we ease the load of the lockdown. We still appeal to more employers to apply for their employees to ensure that we do not leave anyone behind,” Nxesi said.
The Vryheid DoEL office indicated that it was closed during the lockdown period, but encouraged people to make use of the drop box found at the department’s offices.

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Falakhe Dladla said there were only four ‘essential’ employees in the department who ensured that UIF beneficiaries’ claims were paid.
“We process this without the beneficiaries’ presence. We have, however, introduced the drop box for documents needed to process the claims. We have also been processing the temporary relief scheme for employers to pay their employees,” said Dladla.
He further said that the department was continuing to conduct inspections focusing on determining compliance of those offering essential services.
“We conduct inspections over the phone and some of the cases we get are not easy to attend to right away, due to the fact that most companies are closed during this lockdown period,” he added.
Dladla urged people to make use of the Mpimpa Hotline for complaints about working conditions: *134*305#

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