​Chances that fraudulent applications, or at the very least, claims that do not meet the required standards will pass through the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s have diminished considerably after new risk mitigation measures were introduced.

Already, the system has kicked out scores of undeserving beneficiaries as the added controls have kicked into gear and has shown signs of significant improvement in detecting and stopping potential fraudulent claims.

As the payments of Covid-19 TERS Benefits resumed from 21 September 2020, the system has picked up and rejected 193 applications from deceased persons, 1668 from government employees, 2 from incarcerated individuals and 1968 applications for invalid identity documents.

"As you recall the UIF had to put a number of controls in place after the findings of the Auditor General. This were amongst others the verification of identity documents with Home Affairs, verification of the database with the Department of Public Service and Administration, and the verification of incarcerated people with Department of Correctional Services and Justice," said Marsha Bronkhorst, UIF Acting Commissioner.

She added that the Fund is pleased at the instant positive results as a result of those changes and because of the co-operation the Department of Employment and Labour has received from some of its sister departments.

The interdepartmental cooperation will result in not only savings, but a smoother process in paying claims that the government put in place to mitigate the worst effects of lockdown.

The UIF had to suspend payments for two weeks in order to synchronise its database with various government departments and state entities.

Since Monday Covid-19 TERS payments made for April, May and June amount to R1 billion rands (1　098　780　304.86) from 26　312 valid applications. Previously the Fund warned that incomplete claims or claims where information is still outstanding from employers will not be automatically processed. The payments for July and August period will run on Saturday, 26 September and they are expected to be in the beneficiary’s bank accounts on Monday.

"We still have about 138　452 undeclared employees whose April claims we could not process for payments, and we urge employers to make declarations either electronically on uFiling or by completing the UI-19 form　 to　 Covid19declarations@labour.gov.za in a case of less than 10 employees," said Bronkhorst.