NATIONAL NEWS - On Monday, employment and labour minister Thulas Nxesi called on employers to ensure the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) for the Covid-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) is paid out to workers.
Nxesi said this call was spiked by several complaints received from workers claiming their employers have not paid them the money the UIF disbursed as part of the Covid-19 TERS fund.
The fund, which was set to provide temporary relief for workers financially distressed due to the lockdown that resulted in salary cuts or some not getting any salary.
Nxesi said government has paid close to R7-million to employers.
“This is the amount that we are paying for relief for workers. We appeal to employers to ensure it is paid to the workers without any further delay,” he said.
He said to ensure there was no delay in payments to workers, the UIF provided employers with the breakdown of the amount each worker should be paid.
Nxesi said this was after there were complaints that the lump sums were confusing employers.
“We took a decision to even break down the payments, a decision that saw our systems almost overwhelmed with information as we did not want workers’ funds to be delayed even further.
“We once again appeal to employers with outstanding information regarding claims to ensure they forward these as soon as possible,” he said.
Nxesi, however, said some employees had not received their pay-outs because of administration errors in application process and were set to be paid once it is resolved.
“A total of 481 911 workers have been disadvantaged to an amount of close to R2-billion. In addition, there are also 12 959 workers who are also disadvantaged because of failed bank verifications and an amount of about R68-million will be paid over as soon as this is resolved,” Nxesi said.
He added that to date the fund paid about R6.8 billion TERS benefits to 98 720 employers for about 1 134 822 workers and about R151-million through 845 bargaining councils affecting 56 456 workers and about R1.1-billion was paid out in UIF ordinary benefits.
