NEASA has, in the past, published communiques regarding the disastrous state of affairs at the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).
The issues of inefficient staff at labour offices, broken or dysfunctional online systems, non-payments of benefits, service provider court battles and a plethora of other challenges have seemingly finally brought the UIF to its knees.
On 30 August 2024, the Pretoria High Court handed down a judgment on the matter of a service provider that rendered online portal services of UIF. The court issued an interim interdict preventing, with immediate effect, the new service provider from rendering services for the UIF online portal. As a result, the UIF online platforms that are currently disrupted include UFiling, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), and virtual office.
To read the press release from the DoEL on this court judgement, click here
Despite the complete collapse in service rendering by this branch of the Department of Employment and Labour (DoEL), employers are still expected to be compliant with the Unemployment Insurance Act, in the registration of their employees with the Fund and the payment of their contributions.
In a radio interview with the Commissioner on 28 August 2024, he stated that 98% of employers submit the UIF contributions to the UIF through SARS. SARS’s systems are in order and functional, however, those that pay via SARS must still ensure that all employees are registered via the UFiling system. This means, if employers have not ensured that all of their current employees have been registered on the UFiling system prior to its collapse, they will be unable to ensure full compliance, as the system is now dysfunctional.
Employers that do not pay via SARS need to pay via direct bank transfer and will need to physically visit a labour office to submit their declarations.
NEASA has written to the Commissioner of the UIF and requested clarity regarding the system failures, to which no response was received. In our latest letter to the Commissioner, we call on the DoEL to place the UIF under administration.
We will keep employers abreast of the developments in this regard.