UIF payouts slowed by bogus claims, ‘double-dipping’

More than 4,000 Covid-19 related UIF claims were made on behalf of people who had died, about 90,000 were made with invalid ID numbers and close to 200,000 made with ID numbers couldn’t be found on any government system.

This is according to the employment and labour department, which said on Monday it had been inundated with fraudulent claims made with the Covid-19-related temporary employer/employee relief scheme (Ters).

This, the department said, had resulted in delayed payouts — but it promised that all valid claims would be paid.

“Through vetting, we have been able to establish that there were at least 4,000 claims — April [2,729] and May [1,944] — were lodged on behalf of deceased persons,” said UIF commissioner Teboho Maruping.

The department said it paid out R31bn in 6,900,391 payments to date.

However, the department said it was clear than some companies and individuals were trying to take advantage of the system.

“It has become clear as well that some of the identity numbers used to apply for some of the workers do not exist.

“There were also ID numbers that could not be found on any system. In April, they were 106,488 such claims, and 84,278 in May.”

The system kicked these claims out immediately.

Some of the delays were caused becausesome employees had not been registered with the UIF, which then had to “verify their existence” with Sars. In April there 218,548 such cases and 102,397 in May.

“We gave employers the chance to declare these workers through uFiling, after which we would be able to pay. As a result, a total of 171,393 for April and 113,856 for May has recently been declared by employers on uFiling, and we have either paid them or are in the process to do so,” said Maruping.

He said it was compulsory for companies to declare all employees with the fund and to pay over UIF contributions according to the Unemployment Insurance Act, but this had not been the case with some.

The department said it had stated that companies or entities had to have been registered for UIF before March 15, but in April it received 18,648 claims and 3,052 in May — all of which could not be processed.

One of the regulations was that those who already have active UIF cases, either receiving benefits for maternity or unemployment, would not be eligible for Ters relief, but the UIF still received 21,601 claims of these claims and 12,641 in May.

“We could not and still cannot pay in the cases of doubledipping and we made this very clear at the beginning. The Covid-19 benefits necessitated not only new policies and directions, but also a major system change to cope with a tenfold increase in benefit payments,” said Maruping.

The department added that the fund would continue to process claims that are in the system.

The April and May applications are closed but the June applications are still active.