Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi reports that his department is in discussion with other public entities and the private sector to build additional capacity in order to fast-track the processing of the Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) applications and the payment of benefits.

The TERS benefit is administered by the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and is available to UIF-contributing employees who have lost income, or have been required to take annual leave, as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown. Employees cannot apply for TERS directly, with any submissions having to be made by employers.

The Minister reported on Monday evening that the UIF had received more than 55 260 applications from employers representing about 1.6-million employees. In total, the UIF has over 1.8-million employers registered on its database, representing more than eight-million workers.

As of April 20, the cumulative amount paid out was R1.1-billion, with the UIF having processed 37 673 employer applications, covering 606 462 employees.

The Minister said that 9 938 applications could not be processed, owing to errors in submissions, but reported that the affected companies had been notified to correct their applications and resubmit.

“The UIF is working round the clock to meet the extraordinary volumes of requests for assistance presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 benefit scheme will provide much needed relief to employees who have been laid off work or unable to earn an income due to Covid-19,” Nxesi said.

However, he also acknowledged that the UIF system was “under pressure” and said that his department was in discussion with other public entities, including the South African Revenue Service (Sars), and the private sector to build additional capacity.

“We have acknowledged that our system was not designed to accommodate the increased volumes of requests that we are witnessing due to Covid-19. We have already taken steps to mitigate this risk.”

Sars had already been requested to work with the UIF to resolve the backlog, he added.

“Sars had responded positively and they are sending a team to work with the UIF to ensure that we distribute funds to deserving beneficiaries as swiftly and cost-efficiently as possible. We have equally engaged other private sector companies to work with the UIF to enhance the capacity of our IT system to respond to the growing number of requests.”