Massive UIF backlog of 440 000 emails will take 30 months or more to clear

MP Alf Lees, who was at the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) offices on Friday 30 October 2020, said on Twitter that “the call centre has a backlog of 440 000 incoming emails”.

UIF call centre backlog

27 000 calls unanswered, daily

According to Lees, it would reportedly take 30 months to clear the email backlog if no new emails are received. He added that “with new emails pouring in daily the backlog will just get bigger”.

Lees added that the UIF call centre receives an average of “30 000 incoming calls daily but can only deal with 3 000 calls a day”. A whopping 27 000 calls go unanswered every day.

UIF ‘severely understaffed’

In addition, the National Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) investigated concerns that the UIF were “severely understaffed”, particularly at UIF call centres dealing with applications from the public.

Furthermore, the EFF National Chairperson Zovuyo Veronica Mente was accompanied by the Head of Labour Commissar and the Labour MP Commissar on Friday:

“EFF SouthAfrica Head of Labour desk Commissar @HhMkhaliphi, Labour MP Commissar Mkhonto @nomkhonto and SCOPA MP myself conducting oversight at National UIF offices on the collusion of UIF payments with employers. You kill a snake by starting at the head, not the body”.

Bad news for South Africa’s unemployed

This backlog has a massive negative effect on the UIF’s ability to serve the public and spells disaster for the majority of South Africans who need to claim UIF.

South Africans took to social media. One netizen said, “myself and my colleagues can attest to those facts; years of paying UIF and when you need it most there is no one behind those 3 letters who can help”. Another added:

“I am trying to get a UIF claim settled since mid-2019. Nobody there answers telephones or answers emails. Now with [COVID-19] you can’t go their offices for assistance so how are you supposed to get assistance? All I needed was a change of banking details done so I can resubmit”.

UIF re-run of outstanding Ters payments

TheSouthAfrican.com reported earlier this week that the UIF will be doing re-run of all outstanding payments for the period of April to June 2020 due to outstanding information.

The UIF claimed earlier this week that some 462 863 undeclared workers have not yet been paid out, despite the fund making R51 billion available through the COVID-19 Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme (Ters).

Acting UIF Commissioner Marsha Bronkhorst said that while the fund will be making sure all the outstanding valid claims are paid once the relevant information is received. Bronkhorst added:

“If all the information has been submitted correctly to us, we will be paying these employees this week”.