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BL Premium reports that the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), which is playing a central role in the government’s bid to financially support workers and the unemployed, may have to sell some of its bond investments if it runs out of funds.
With the Covid-19 lockdown continuing and amid escalating retrenchments, there have been concerns over the ability of the fund to meet the growing demand for benefits. The fund has assets of R136bn. Its investments in government bonds total R71bn and it has R12bn in bonds of state-owned enterprises, R26bn in domestic equities, R6bn in offshore investments, R7bn in money market investments and R14bn in social responsibility investments. The fund has set aside R40bn for Covid-19-related interventions for three months, but if the lockdown was extended beyond this period it might have to consider selling some of its bonds if that was not enough, labour department director-general Thobile Lamati told MPs on Friday. He reported that from 16 to 29 April, a total of 77,801 claims to the value of R4.47bn had been paid under the Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) to 1.1-million employees. In addition, 65,088 normal UIF benefits totalling just more than R1bn had been paid from 26 March to 30 April.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Linda Ensor at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page