(5 minutes read)
· The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) will crack down on those, who fraudulently claim Covid-19 support, South African Parliament told.
· Since the national lockdown started, the UIF paid out R28 billion in Covid-19 benefits covering 520 000 employers and 6 million laid off employees.
The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) will crack down on those, who fraudulently claim Covid-19 support, South African Parliament told.
Minister of Labor and Employment Thulas Nxesi told MPs that the UIF was in the process of putting mechanisms in order to find, investigate and report instances where criminals defrauded its Covid-19 support mechanism. He was briefing a joint meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labor and the Select Committee on Trade and Industry,
The UIF is now preparing to pay out the last of its Covid-19 temporary employer-employee relief scheme (TERS) benefits to employers of laid off workers that have not previously contributed to the UIF system. This would be the last of the Covid-19 payments. Nxesi lamented that, while the UIF projected that R40 billion would be disbursed by the UIF in this Covid-19 dispensation, the disbursements are likely to surpass that figure by the end of the month. Since the national lockdown started, the UIF paid out R28 billion in Covid-19 benefits covering 520 000 employers and 6 million laid off employees.
Nxesi said the department and UIF worked with business formations and labor in the National Economic Development and Labor Council to inform the fund’s process in bulk disbursements. Nxesi said the UIF and the department were working to prevent double payments, capture banking details and strengthen passwords. He said a probity company would conduct analytics on all suspicious transactions within 10 days.
UIF commissioner Teboho Maruping said R2.5 billion was paid to ordinary beneficiaries that are not on the Covid-19 beneficiary system. He said that one company tried to lodge a case with the information of 35 employees who were
the UIF found.
