The labour department in Limpopo has cautioned Covid-19 Temporary Employee/Employer Relief Scheme (Ters) UIF scheme applicants not to pay third parties who promise to fast-track their applications. 

The department received complaints from people who paid agencies with the hope of a quick turnaround, but deputy director of beneficiary services Ronet Landman said doing so would not help.

“Do not pay third parties money to claim or apply for Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) benefits on your behalf. Departmental officials will not accept or prioritise them.”

The department attributed delays in applications to employers failing to declare their employees or properly updating the required information.

“We urge employers not to give their employees the UI19 form, because by the time it reaches our desks a lot of information, such as salary and hours worked, has changed.

“Our officials cannot pay incomplete applications; we rely on employers to send the necessary documentation so we can finalise the payments,” said the director of UIF in the province, Vuledzani Mulindi.

The labour department in Limpopo received 173,080 Ters applications. A total of 147,659 payments were processed and 7,839 employers and 150,099 employees have since been paid.

The department addressed complaints raised by Sassa applicants who have been rejected for the R350 social relief of distress (SRD) grant if they are registered as UIF beneficiaries.

It said it is not possible to remove them from the UIF system unless the department has received confirmation from their former employer. 

Ters was introduced in 2020 to help with job retention at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The scheme has been tainted by reports of fraud. In December last year, the department recovered R111m illegally claimed by a Pretoria businessman, Thabo Abel Simbini. Simbini claimed he had laid off 6,647 employees because of the coronavirus.