'Technical glitches' delay UIF funding

Picture: Karen Sandison/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Karen Sandison/African News Agency(ANA)

Published Jul 5, 2020

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Cape Town - Workers can expect delays in the

processing of Covid-19 Temporary

Employee/Employer Relief Scheme

(TERS) claims submitted for June as

a result of “technical glitches” in the

system, UIF commissioner Teboho

Maruping has said.

“The main problem is with the swopping of employer profiles when users try to submit claims, which causes a potential security breach," he said.

“We initially opened the system for June applications on June 23 and our aim was to start making the first payments on June 25 to ensure that employees do not wait too long for their salaries. Unfortunately, we experienced problems with the swopping of user profiles and we immediately shut it down for June and rolled back to May to fix the problem.

“We deployed the system again on June 24, but the problem persisted and our IT engineers have ultimately increased the capacity of the system to be able to simultaneously process claims for April, May and June,” said Maruping.

“The good thing is that the data is safe and we will ultimately be able to finalise the claims and pay monies due to employees once we have resolved the current issues.”

To quickly deal with the problems, Maruping said the fund had roped-in external resources to help. However, the fund would make sure that the system was completely stable before re-opening for June applications.

“I wish to apologise to employers and employees for further delays, we are, however, working around the clock to fix the problem. We anticipate complete testing by Friday (July 8) so that we can open the system again over the weekend if everything goes according to plan,” said Maruping.

Meanwhile, Makhosonke Buthelezi, director UIF Communication and Marketing, said: “The UIF will continue to accept and process Covid-19 TERS claims submitted for April, May and June as per the directive issued by Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi on March 26.

“This directive established the Covid-19 TERS benefits to last for a period of three months."

@MwangiGithahu

[email protected]

Cape Argus

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