Dear Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour,

This serves as a request for serious and URGENT intervention of the Portfolio Committee with the UI Fund. The Fund including the Commissioner is completely dysfunctional and it would seem as if the Commissioner and the Director General: Department of Employment and Labour has lost control of the UIF.

Everybody seems to be doing whatever they want (if they do anything at all) with no regard to legislation, regulations and standard operating procedures! In the process innocent UI applicants are suffering due to the laziness and incompetence and vindictiveness and malice and spite of UI officials and NOBODY including the Commissioner, the DG and the responsible Minister is doing anything about complaints and/ or to resolve and address the issue.

The vision of the UIF is apparently to strive to contribute to the alleviation of poverty in South Africa by providing effective short-term unemployment insurance to all workers who qualify for unemployment insurance and other related benefits. The UIF claims that their strategic outcome-orientated goals are to, among others: improve payment of benefits to UIF beneficiaries and to provide effective administration of the Fund's operations.

None of the goals are being achieved due to dysfunctional UIF including the Commissioner and senior management and the attitude of UI staff!

My wife was forced to sell her company, Eduvet Kids in August 2021 due to the effects of Covid-19 and also her deteriorating health. As a result both my wife and her employee became unemployed.

In September 2021 both my wife, Louise le Roux, ID 6701060055081 as well her other employee, Martie Willemse. ID 4702280001089 submitted all the necessary forms to the Unemployment Insurance Fund. Both contributed to UIF since 1 May 2012.

By the beginning of August 2022 (almost a year later), despite numerous follow-ups and enquiries neither person has received any benefit payment nor has there been any query or request for additional information from UIF.

On 12 August 2022 I followed up with the Office of Minister Nxesi, the Director General and the Commissioner on behalf of the two people involved. The gatekeepers in the office of the Minister referred the complaint to officials within the Department, BUT NEEDLESS TO SAY WE DID NOT RECEIVE ANY ASSISTANCE from these officials.

On 24 August (another 12 days later) there was still NO PROGRESS and I once again followed up with the Department and UIF. All of a sudden there was various requests for additional information:

1. UIF captured the start date of my wife the same as the end date and DEMANDED a letter from "the senior person in the business" to confirm the correct start date.
2. After confirming the correct start date with documentary proof, another official from UIF requested the ID numbers of the two people involved.
3. After submitting the "requested" information again, we just received a new instruction to "provide us with your wife details (ID) and email address, contact details so we can be able to reach her and see how we can resolve the query.
No sufficient information provided below to use.

Note that due to POPI Act we will only interact with the claimant, therefore advised her to provide us with her details."

At long last and despite numerous stumbling blocks and challenges the claims were processed, assessed and sent to the paymaster on 15 and 20 September 2022 respectively. On 30 September and despite it having been assessed and sent to the paymaster twice, he/ she again declined payment on my wife's claim - NO REASON GIVEN AND NO COMMUNICATION FROM UIF! The claim of Mrs Willemse has been with the paymaster since 20 September 2022 and there has not been any movement on this claim!

From the above it is very clear that the department including the Accounting Officer and the Commissioner is NOT taking us seriously and are playing games.

I am sure that you will agree that it is totally unacceptable for anybody, but especially people for whom UIF benefits are the only source of income, to have to wait for more than a year for payment of UIF benefits especially after contributing to the Fund for more than 9 years. What is more shocking and disappointing is the fact that the DG and Commissioner, WHO ARE ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE, is NOT taking the issue seriously. There is absolutely NO SERVICE DELIVERY in UIF and even after engaging the DG and Commissioner there is NO URGENCY and worse of all NO CONSEQUENCES for non compliance and/ or dereliction of duty and I AM OF THE FIRM OPINION THAT URGENT INTERVENTION FROM THE PORTFOLIO COMM IS NECESSARY!

These are the same people who "paid out R 61 billion over the past two years to 250 000 companies for about 4.7 million employees, and only R 14 billion had been confirmed as correctly paid to deserving employees" ?

Retief le Roux