Government goes robust on service delivery initiatives

Government will stop at nothing in rendering services to the poor as per the promise to fight poverty and fight unemployment by 2014.

Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said when he launched the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) local processing centre as part of his second leg of Imbizo in Thohoyandou – Limpopo today.

“As government we pinned ourselves to the manifesto as contained in the ‘Peoples Contract to Create Jobs and Fight Poverty’. Let me assure you that we are walking the talk by delivering such facilities right where the people are.

 Beneficiaries will be able to access the following services at the centre: Registration of all claims, Registration of employers, Declaration of employees, Finalisation of claims (approval and processing) and Handling of general queries.

“People will no longer have to travel a long way to Polokwane in order to access services, because we have decentralised functions from Pretoria to Thohoyandou. This means we will have more Department of Labour staff members rendering services in your area.

“The important aspect of the UIF is that it will contribute towards poverty alleviation through a robust social security,” he said.

Mdladlana also proudly announced that the fund has accumulated a staggering R28 billion in reserves for the beneficiaries and managed to dramatically reduce queues through the introduction of improved systems.

The fund has been instrumental in the creation of 7.2 million bank accounts for the beneficiaries of the fund. Dodgy employers were also warned to register their employees with the fund.

“No employer will have an excuse not to register a worker, now that they can do that at the comfort of their computers at home or elsewhere by merely accessing internet.

Up to date the fund has registered more that 600 000 domestic workers on UIF data base,” he said.