The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) said it is aiming to start processing applications for the extension of the wage protection scheme for workers affected by the Covid-19 lockdown in the first week of March.
The UIF and social partners met at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) this week where proposals were tabled by the fund on how the Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) would be extended to sectors still affected by regulations as well as employees with comorbidities and those over 60 who cannot be reasonably accommodated at work.
The fund on Wednesday said sectors ranging from tourism to hospitality, including those involved in the manufacturing, dispensing, distribution and transportation of liquor would be covered by the extension of the scheme. Businesses which fell in the value chain would also be included in the list.
“The business constituency has been tasked to review the proposed sectors to ensure that all businesses or establishments who are affected in one way or another are covered in this extension,” UIF acting commissioner Marsha Bronkhorst said.
It was also proposed that those who had to self-isolate or quarantine because of Covid-19 could claim income replacement from the UIF.
President Cyril Ramaphosa in his state of the nation address last week announced that the Ters benefit would be extended to March 15. This means it would cover the period from October 15 2020, when the benefit originally came to an end, until March.
To date, the UIF has paid out just more than R58bn since March 2020. The initial budget was R40bn, and formed part of the government’s R500bn social and economic relief plan implemented in 2020 when the country entered a hard lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Social partners and the UIF had been negotiating an extension of the scheme at Nedlac for the past few months, but had not been able to come to a consensus, with the fund at the time proposing that relief be provided to workers through the reduced-work-time benefit. Business and labour were, however, worried about the effect it would have on workers’ UIF credit.
It was agreed that the Ters benefit would now be extended in its original form.
The UIF said the Nedlac social partners had agreed to two payment periods in the extension. The first would for the period between October 16 and December 31 2020 and the second from January 1 to March 15 2021.
Head of Business for SA’s labour workstream Rob Legh said the extension was “good news” and what business and labour had been advocating for the past few months.
“Notwithstanding many teething problems, this scheme has been a flagship in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, making over R58bn available to the economy since March 2020,” he said.
Trade union federation Cosatu said it was pleased that the extension would be at the same rate in terms of the sliding scale and cap as before and that it will not be linked to the workers’ UIF credit cycle.
“Cosatu believes that as long as restrictions to work remain on certain workers and sectors, then such relief measures must be provided to ensure workers are able to feed their families, and companies can remain open and prevent retrenchments,” it said.
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