Covid-19 TERS benefit extended to August

EMPLOYMENT and Labour Deputy Minister Boitumelo Booi says the Covid-19 Temporary Employers/ Employee Relief Fund, set up to help those who found themselves out of work due to lockdown, will be extended to August.

This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa extended the national state of disaster to August as the Covid-19 pandemic spurs national efforts to mitigate the spread of infections.

Booi said the benefit structure and existing criteria would remain the same, and applications for April and May will be closed by the end of July although applications already received for these two months will be processed – this is the guarantee that the department gave to the people.

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To date, some R34 billion in benefits has been distributed through employers in 7.4 million payments to recipients and this was in line with a commitment to provide income support for three months.

During the same period, a further R4 billion was disbursed in normal UIF benefits in 677 000 payments to beneficiaries.

Booi said, meanwhile, that the UIF is revamping its call centre to better respond to client queries.

“In the last week, I can report reliably that the call answer rate has improved from 88 per cent to 97 per cent, reflecting an improved average speed to answer calls to 26 seconds. So your calls will not necessarily be ringing unanswered for a very long time but there will be a response within a few seconds,” she said

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