JOHANNESBURG - The South African government has decided to extend the Covid-19 Temporary Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) benefits to 15 August 2020.
The benefit was initially meant to run until the end of June.
Last week, in an attempt to stop the fraud that has been taking place from the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s relief scheme, the fund has introduced new and more stringent controls to verify banking details.
According to the Department of Employment and Labour, because of the introduction of the new safety measures, the fund has had to delay payments.
The department said in a statement that over the weekend it had resumed payments and disbursed R372 million of Covid-19 TERS benefit claims.
"The payment covered claims for April and May lodged by 15 866 employers benefiting 78 283 employees for whose banking details passed the verification process. Further payments were done today (July 14) with about R295m paid out from 1 824 employers benefiting 76 078 workers. This brings the total paid to date since April 16 to just under R30 billion (R 29 726 359 618.48) covering 6 789 695 workers from 539 953 employers," the department said.
The South African government has decided to extend the Covid-19 Temporary Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) benefits to 15 August 2020.
As part of the new control measures, the fund has also introduced a new rule to the system that requires applicants to insert either the Enterprise number (CK/CIPC) or the ID number of the bank account holder in the TERS online portal in order to further verify banking details against the authorised claimant.
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