UIF’s ups and downs
EXPERTS: R16.5BN PAID OUT IN RELIEF CLAIMS JUST ‘TEMPORARY EFFICIENCY’
‘Easy to spend money but challenge to generate that back. We will pay the price.’
The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has so far paid out a total of R16.5 billion in Covid-19 relief funds, which experts say is a dramatic improvement in capacity for a state agency that has, in the past few years, struggled to efficiently deliver services such as maternity leave benefits.
But Andre Duvenhage, political scientist and professor at the University of the North West, believes this sense of efficient state social assistance machinery was “of temporary nature”.
He said in times of a crisis affecting the population, particularly the poor, government could not afford to fail.
In areas that had no water, even in far-flung and seemingly forgotten corners of the country, government had ensured supply in the wake of Covid-19, he said.
“It is time to save face because there is a lot at stake. It also opens up major challenges because it is easy to spend money but it could be a huge challenge to generate that money. We will pay the price in the future,” Duvenhage said.
This demonstrated how capacity was not the issue but rather a questions of will and ethics, he said, adding that people should demand the same level of service post-Covid-19 and take no excuses.
Solly Masilela, an independent socioeconomic and political analyst, said it would seem the government was only able to deliver under pressure in a chaotic or abnormal situation that conveniently suspended the procurement procedures.
This was the case with the 2010 World Cup procurements,