Following the national lockdown announced by the President on the 26th of March 2020, the government has made numerous benefit options available, in order to assist its citizens during the COVID-19 lockdown. With confusing guidelines, employers and employees alike have been frantically trying to determine which of the benefits will be the most advantageous.
The processes applicable to each of the options have also changed frequently, especially with regards to the COVID19TERS benefit.
The latest decision is to only make a single fund available, with one process to follow, namely COVID19TERS.
The process has been simplified and the benefit (COVID19TERS) can now be applied for quite easy and hassle-free.
The COVID19TERS was likely introduced to avoid millions of individual claims being lodged by employees at the Unemployment Insurance Fund, which would be very difficult to manage.
Furthermore, even if an employer pays a % or part of his employees’ salaries, the employer can still apply to the COVID19TERS fund to be remunerated for the % he could not pay, which in turn must then be paid to the employee. Previously, employees had to submit these claims in their personal capacity at the UIF.
However, should the employer not apply for the COVID19TERS benefit, we are of the opinion that the employee would still be able to lodge an individual claim at UIF through the Reduced Working Time benefit – but, as stated, this should preferably, be the exception.
If you would like to lodge a claim for the COVID19TERS benefit, you may simply send an email to covid19ters@labour.gov.za, indicating that your business needs financial assistance because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Once you have submitted your request, you will receive an automatic response from the UIF office, containing guidelines on how to submit your claim, as well as the necessary forms attached to that email.
Should you require assistance with the submission of your claim, kindly visit our website at www.seesa.co.za where we have made available contact details for your specific area. Kindly click on Contact https://www.seesa.co.za/contact/ in order to access the mentioned numbers. Alternatively, SMS the word SEESA to 45776 and we will contact you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pieter de Jager is the Provincial Manager of SEESA Labour’s Gauteng office. He obtained his LLB degree and his LLM degree in Corporate Law at the University of Pretoria. He is an admitted attorney and started working as a legal advisor in SEESA’s Gauteng office, in 2008.