The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) is committed to pay millions of workers their relief payments under the COVID-19 TERS until the end of June, 2020.
UIF states that they remain committed to paying the TERS Benefits till June 2020 as per the initial Directive of 26 March 2020. The benefits will continue to be paid to eligible employees as set out in COVID-19 Directives of April, May and June 2020 and will be paid according to the same benefits structure of the income replacement rate varying between 38% and 60%”, said Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi.
The Fund has also committed to ensuring that applications received in April and May that have been registered in the system will still be processed and paid once all the relevant documents and information has been received. In cases of claims that have been declined because of lack of proper documentation, the Fund is committed to paying as soon as this information has been received.
The department noted that as of 24 June 2020, the Fund has paid out R 8,4 billion to 149 120 employees who submitted applications on behalf of 2 037 458 employees. In total, UIF has disbursed close to R 28 billion since 16 April 2020. The payments were intended as a stop-gap measure for a period of three months or until such time that lockdown restrictions were eased and the economy slowly re-opened.
Minister Thulas Nexi further added the payments by the UIF should be seen in the context of a government-wide basket of services and interventions to ease the burden of the coronavirus. In the process, and because this is unprecedented, a few mistakes occurred but detractors fail to see the magnitude of the work that has been done and the relief that it has brought to many people in our country.
A fair amount of R 770 million has been paid directly to bank accounts of workers instead of it being paid to the employers even though claims were lodged by employers.
The figures above show positive outcomes from the UIF, unfortunately, 965 751 employees have been unable to receive their benefits because of outstanding information from their employers.
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Please advise if UIF will be paid out from July onwards for short time or lay off …this is urgent query . Thank you.
The UIF will not be paying the TERS benefit after June 2020. However, the UIF will be paying out for employees on short time, or those on lay off, even from July 2020. These effected employees will, however, need to institute their claims individually.