The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) says they disbursed millions in benefits to thousands of young people in the KwaZulu-Natal province between November 2022 and March 2023.
The fund noted that to date, an amount of R172 million has been paid out to 40,113 clients.
These young people were employed under the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, which was implemented as part of the Basic Education Employment Initiative across all nine provinces to reduce youth unemployment in the country.
More than 850,000 employment opportunities were created for individuals between the ages of 18 and 34 years old during the first three phases of the programme.
After losing this avenue to generate income, they were encouraged to apply for financial support from the Unemployment Insurance Fund as they contributed to the fund whilst they were employed.
Part of the fund's campaign was to deploy mobile buses to clients in all districts of the province, where clients were assisted to apply for benefits using their smartphones.
The UIF says that the turnaround time to process a claim submitted by an applicant is 15 working days. Payment will then be made 30 days from the date of termination of service.
Through this campaign we were able to save clients’ money on travel costs, as well as time, using technology and innovation.
UIF commissioner Teboho Maruping noted that they are committed to improving their services, this includes leveraging technology and fostering partnerships to fast-track the process of applying and paying benefits to UIF clients.
He continued, “Added to this, we will redouble our efforts to improve compliance by education workers and employers about their rights and responsibilities, to ensure that they are able to claim benefits when the need arises.”
Furthermore, the fund says that over the same period, they collected R10 billion in revenue nationally, enabling them to continue making payments to workers and beneficiaries from all provinces.
