Limpopo ranks second in TERS fraud

POLOKWANE – Limpopo ranks second highest in terms of the monetary value of suspected Covid-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) fraud cases in the country, while six companies have been flagged for suspected fraud.

This was disclosed during a media session of the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) held at Bolivia Lodge last Wednesday.

The entity’s director of provincial support, Allan Ragavaloo said in Limpopo, 197 companies that received Covid-19 Ters payouts had been audited, and of these, six have been flagged for suspected fraud. Four of them are currently under investigation.

“The UIF found that there was a trend in the province where redundant companies that were no longer operating were used by fraudsters who used ID numbers that were obtained from either a database of people who used to be employed as part of the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP), access control registers from various places or from scams where people were promised jobs, in return for submission of their ID numbers,” Ragavaloo explained. Since the inception of the Covid-19 Ters scheme, more than R16b has been disbursed to a total of 477 199 employers and employees in Limpopo.

The top 10 sectors that benefitted from Covid-19 Ters are personal services, trade, mining, building, personal services, agriculture, educational services, iron, air and food sectors.

“Alongside every application we’ve received, processed and paid out, we run the ‘Follow the Money’ auditing project which is aimed to ensure that all monies are properly accounted for. We want to be sure that monies paid out for employees actually reached them in full amounts. Our Covid-19 relief scheme was not set up to compensate employers or to cover business operational expenses. It was and remains for loss of employee income,” stressed Ragavaloo.

The manager in the office of the UIF commissioner, Smiso Nkosi said the objective of the ‘Follow the Money’ project is not to recover monies but to ensure that the funds reached the intended beneficiaries at the right time and that the funds were not abused or misused by employers.

“Even if it’s three years later, we still want those money to reach the employees. Through the process we discovered that the UIF did not pay the wrong people. It was the employers and the fraudsters who came to the UIF and who falsified information in their applications. We have since appointed seven auditing companies to help us follow that money,” said Nkosi.

Nkosi said for phase one of the project the UIF audited and verified R14b. Another R14b was verified in the second phase of the project, resulting in a total of R28b.

“We have verified nearly half of the R64b that was paid out. This is how fast we are moving, and we have a deadline of March 31, 2024 when we want to be done with all verifications to determine whether we have paid the intended beneficiaries,” said Nkosi. Of the phase one audit, it was found that only R11b had reached the intended recipients, which indicates that at least R3b has not yet been paid out to employees and are still in employer bank accounts, he said.

Ragavaloo concluded, saying that workers who have not yet received their Ters payments should not despair as the UIF is in the process of reviewing previously rejected employer applications. Ragavaloo explained that key reasons for the rejections were employer non-declarations, invalid banking details, incorrect income, identity or passport numbers that could not be verified, sector appeals and risk factors that were identified by the UIF system.

Employers and employees who have not yet received their Covid-19 Ters payments can utilise the ufiling platform www.ufiling.co.za/folowthemoney to effect corrections to their applications. They can also contact the UIF through WhatsApp number 067 411 0240.