In a statement on Thursday, the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) reported that since the start of the Covid lockdown last year, the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has disbursed R63 billion, bringing relief to about 5.4 million workers.

It has been 17 months since the Covid-19 Temporary Employer / Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) was introduced to save jobs and ease the financial burden on businesses, and most importantly, their vulnerable workers who lost income during the lockdown. The money paid out was the largest sum that has been paid by government to help workers, businesses and the economy mitigate the impact of the lockdowns. “Considering the fact that the initial budget was R40 billion, which has now been exceeded by R23 billion, is a remarkable feat by all standards. While we celebrate the positive impact of Covid-19 Ters to employers and employees, many pay outs are still outstanding largely due to employers who were none-compliant prior to submitting claims for their workers. In some cases, the delays are as a result of ‘errors’ committed by employers in the process of lodging applications,” the department noted. The DEL also commended 404 employers, who heeded the recent call to fix errors, which resulted in the payment of R9,633,516 to 10,181 employees. The bulk of errors related to incorrect banking details; incorrect ID or passport numbers; no declarations found; applications for deceased, underage, incarcerated, and government employees; and incorrect salary received during lockdown. But the DEL said it was concerned over grievances that employers did not pay over the money to their workers.

• Read the DEL’s statement in full at SA Govt News

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page