TERS benefits subject to forensic audit

Lolo Madonsela

The Department of Employment & Labour has announced that due diligence regarding the number of transactions being processed at the moment regarding Covid-19 TERS benefits will be subject to forensic audits where foul play is suspected.
Minister Thulas Nxesi said this during a ‘virtual’ meeting with the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour last week Wednesday.
“With these huge payments, inevitably you will attract criminals and companies colluding with employees to try and fleece the coffers. We will be engaging the services of the Auditor-General and auditing firms to ensure that we comb through all the payments,” said Nxesi.
According to UIF Commissioner Teboho Maruping, some employers were suddenly claiming for more employees than those who were in the fund’s systems; the fund would pay but raise debt against the companies, to be paid with interest and penalties.
Maruping also indicated that where companies were still on lockdown, the process of paying was going to be quicker in May, as the UIF already has details.

Also read: Challenges as employers don’t pay UIF

“Moreover, we are paying workers directly and we have increased our capacity to process the claims. We will easily check on those who have not returned to work, enabling simplicity of payments. We will also advise companies that there is no need to apply again and that we will automatically pay,” said Maruping.
On the Compensation Fund (CF), Commissioner Vuyo Mafata said that the CompEasy system was working smoothly and claims to the contrary were untrue. He said that the CF has migrated more than 80% of all valid invoices into the new system and where this has not happened, this was due to outstanding issues that needed to be resolved with claims submitted.
“Since April, we have paid more than R400 million in claims and continue to do so. The system is working. However, over and above that, we continue to engage medical advisors and many other stakeholders. We have received favourable uptakes of the system, which also allows the claimants a degree of freedom to do their own claims,” said Mafata.
Mafata added that the CF was working hard to ensure that it meets the target of not incurring any new irregular expenditure.
The Director-General of the department, Thobile Lamati, said that a clean audit campaign was underway to ensure that the department and its entities have clean audits going forward.
“We want to make sure that we don’t talk about wasteful and fruitless expenditure. Every time we meet, we measure how we are doing in terms of audit outcomes and where needed, apply corrective measures. We are also mindful that as the country approaches level 3, more people will be going to work and it is our duty to ensure safety,” said Lamati.

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