Flowing of TERS welcome for needy

It is to be welcomed that the abrupt suspension of the vitally needed Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) payouts has been reversed and that those in need will, hopefully, get their money.

The payments were suspended after Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu’s experts found “control deficiencies” in the Ters payments systems, as part of a broader audit of government Covid-19-related programmes.

We certainly hope “control deficiencies” is not an auditor’s euphemism for pathetic incompetence, or even corruption and theft … both of which have become hallmarks of the Covid-19 programmes, not to mention government in general.

Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi is, worryingly, still silent on the issue, having failed to even say publicly that payments had been stopped in the first place. One wonders, then: what exactly is happening in his portfolio? Ters is an especially important intervention and one for which hundreds of thousands of workers – retrenched, on forced leave or battling on reduced salaries because of the collapse of businesses due to the Covid-19 lockdowns – are immensely grateful. The relief has the power to ease the suffering and, therefore, to stop the payments is inhumane.

If there are criminal acts involved, those implicated must be punished to the full extent of the law.

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