The Temporary Employer/Employee Relief (TERS) scheme was established in 2020 to provide short-term financial support to employees who lost income during the pandemic.
In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster. This saw a hard lockdown instituted, which became known as lockdown Alert Level 5.
During the Alert Level 5 lockdown people in the country had to stay at home. In many cases, this meant that businesses were prevented from generating revenue which left staff without salaries.
This saw the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) establish the TERS scheme. It is estimated that the UIF provided relief to more than 5.4 million employees through the scheme and has paid out more than R63 Billion in TERS relief.
The TERS relief is paid out in terms of Unemployment Insurance Act and thus exempt from income tax.
The UIF is hoping to finalise all TERS related claims by the end of 2021.
Acting UIF Commissioner Advocate Mzie Yawa said that even if employees who did not make contributions to the fund, still received relief from the fund.
He said, “the pandemic hit everybody hard. As a caring employer, a caring UIF, a caring Department of Labor, we took care of people who never have been insured. Had we been strict with insurance mechanisms, if you're not insured or even if you're insured [and] you're not up to date with your installments or your premiums, you would have got a zero but we made people benefit”.
