The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) says it has more than a million outstanding claims on its Covid-19 Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) portal that stand to be closed by the end of December if claimants do not attend to the errors on their applications.
A media statement issued by the Department of Employment and Labour on Wednesday states that simple errors in the applications are the main reason outstanding claims are yet to be finalised. The most common errors on the applications include incorrect banking details, incorrect income and invalid identity or passport numbers.
“We have observed that most Covid-19 Ters payments are unsuccessful due to employers or their representatives failing to follow the application procedures correctly,” says acting UIF Commissioner Advocate Mzie Yawa.
“The application platform provides error messages and guides employers on what they need to do to correct mistakes.”
Attempts at fraud could be to blame
The department believes the reason a lot of outstanding claims, some dating back to March 2020, are not being attended to by claimants is that they are fraudulent.
Acting departmental spokesperson Musa Zondi, speaking to Moneyweb, says: “It’s because some of the people who have been claiming fraudulently and that’s why they won’t be able to answer some of the [errors on the claims] because these are part of the vetting that is to ensure that the [bona fide] people get the money that they need to get.
“How else would one explain having asked so many times for those employers to come back to us and they still haven’t?”
“Of all the claims we have looked at, more than 4 000 were claims from dead people, and those claims would have emanated from somewhere,” says Zondi.
“We were receiving the claims, so they would have emanated from an employer or whoever was posing as an employer and trying to put the names of dead people [forward],” Zondi added.
Red tape may be another reason
However, Business Unity South Africa (Busa) CEO Cas Coovadia tells Moneyweb that employers are largely fatigued by the slow and often confusing claims process.
For more on this story visit www.moneyweb.co.za
