‘We will freeze your assets to ensure Covid-19 relief fund compliance’ – warns UIF

Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) commissioner Teboho Maruping has issued a stern warning to company directors that the UIF will freeze their bank accounts and assets if they fail to cooperate with auditors investigating the Covid-19 TERS (Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme) relief funds.

Maruping said that the warning comes after several companies who benefited from the relief funds failed to cooperate with forensic auditors who made prior arrangements to visit their premises to verify if monies were paid over to workers.

Maruping said that he personally joined the forensic auditors and was left frustrated by several seemingly errant companies that were non-cooperative and evasive.

Officials made to “stand around like beggars”

“It was disheartening to find a well-established company in Pinetown with whom we made prior arrangements for the audit, not be ready to cooperate with us,” said Maruping.

“At another company also based in Pinetown, we were locked out and made to stand around like beggars.

“This kind of behaviour is the worst form of disrespect to workers because it is their hard-earned money we are trying to audit and account for here. The fact that this is happening during Workers’ Month makes it a spit in the face of the working class, and we won’t stand for that,” he added.

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KwaZulu-Natal businesses received R9.2 billion of the total R62 billion Covid-19 TERS allocation, which was intended to be paid over to workers to sustain them during and after the Covid-19 lockdown periods.

Maruping has warned that the UIF will not hesitate to refer cases to the Hawks and the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to freeze bank accounts and assets of non-cooperating companies.

He called on company directors to use the audit opportunity to demonstrate good corporate citizenry and to exonerate themselves from any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Follow the money

He also confirmed that the UIF has intensified work done on the “follow the money” project, with the aim of accounting to the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) as well as other assurance, oversight and governance structures much sooner, for the relief monies paid out to companies during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Last year, Maruping said UIF deployed more than 360 auditors from seven companies with auditing, accounting and forensic investigation to assist with the “follow the money” project.

“Since the beginning of 2022, more than 15 company directors have been criminally prosecuted for Covid-19-related fraud,” he said.

“The longest direct imprisonment sentence remains a period of 135 years which was meted out to Bookkeeper Lindelani Gumede after he was found guilty of 32 counts of Covid-19 fraud, amounting to R11 million,” Maruping added.