The Unemployment Insurance Fund has successfully tweaked its website to enable employers, employees, and organised labour to check online, the status of applications for the COVID-19 TERS scheme.
UIF is helping employers who are struggling financially through the Covid-19 crisis to pay salaries.
The development was done in response to a number of queries where workers had been unable to determine if their companies have applied for, and received payment on their behalf from the Department of Employment and Labour COVID-19 TERS scheme.
“This relieves the overwhelmed call centre as information is available on the fingertips,” the Department of Labour said in a statement.
Employers will be able to log and check the status of their claims. Employers will also be able to see the schedule of the approved claim, which shows how much is due to each employee.
Employers had inundated the UIF with requests for information on the exact amounts for different employees.
“As a public service institution, we continue to listen to our stakeholders and we will make further enhancement to the system in response to the identified needs of our stakeholders,” said UIF Commissioner Teboho Maruping.
The enhancements have also ensured that the online systems for claims capturing, processing and eventual payment have been stress-tested with the overflow of applications that have been received.
“At some stage, it looked like our system could not handle the overwhelming interest but we are happy that we have managed to meet the demand and pay in record time – with some people indicating that they have been paid within 24-hours of lodging the claims,” said the Commissioner.
The UIF had paid just over R5 billion in combined normal and COVID-19 benefits since April 16. More than 1 035 303 workers had been paid COVID-19 TERS relief benefits to the tune of R4,11 billion.
The figures represented successful claims submitted by 72 221 employers.
However, claims by some 55 169 employers representing 361 557 workers were still in abeyance, pending submission of further particulars by employers.
