A large proportion of businesses in the tourism industry are still awaiting payment from their COVID-19 UIF Beneficiary Process Temporary Employers Relief Scheme (UIF TERS) applications.

COO of SATSA, Hannelie du Toit, told Tourism Update that the organisation had assisted a number of its members through the process and that delays had been due to the volumes of applications, not technical difficulties.

“Just below 25% of April applications are still outstanding according to the UIF Commissioner, Teboho Maruping, and these were mostly undeclared employees not on the UIF database, and foreign nationals,” said Du Toit.

“Some members were paid timeously and others are experiencing lots of frustration. As from Monday, June 8, UIF has managed to pay out 20% of May applications and are working hard at processing the remainder.”

This follows the Memorandum of Understanding that the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) signed in April with the UIF and the Department of Labour to ensure that UIF TERS payments for the tourism industry would be fast-tracked.

The targeted turnaround time for the approval of applications was 48 hours, with the disbursement of funds requiring an additional 48 hours. In a previous article, CEO of the TBCSA, Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, said all fully compliant applications would be completed and paid within a maximum of 10 days. Unfortunately this has not been the case for many businesses in the industry.

Owner of Tented Adventures, Wynand du Toit, told Tourism Update that he had completed the UIF TERS application in late May but nothing had been received. “To date, the system only states ‘application not processed yet’ and I did send several emails and even resorted to Twitter to ask for updates and nothing has been received yet.”

Owner of SA Travelbug, Julie Mitchell, said she contacted the Department of Labour to inquire about the payment for May. “They advised that payment was declined because my staff are not registered, which is untrue,” she said. “They received the April payment so how can they not be registered?”

Tourism Update contacted the TBCSA for comment and was told to speak to the Department of Labour on the matter.

UIF Deputy Director of Communication, Lungelo Mkamba, told Tourism Update that some of the delays in payment were due to incorrect information in application forms.

“We verify the information against our system to ensure that the employees that businesses are claiming for are registered and pay monthly contributions to the fund,” said Mkamba.

“When we identify inconsistencies, we send an enquiry to the employer for more information and evidence which may, regrettably, cause delays for us to approve and pay some of their employees. However, the reasons may vary for each company.”

Mkamba said some of the common delays included employers claiming for workers that were not on the database; incorrect banking details; incomplete details of employees; and employers not declaring their workers to the UIF on a monthly basis as required by the Unemployment Insurance Amendment Act of 2016.

Maruping said in an interview with Newzroom Afrika on June 10, that 425 000 people had applied for UIF TERS and that to date a total of 305 000 had been paid for April and so far 52 000 had been paid for May.