People queue from the early hours of the morning at the Department of Labour offices in Bellville.
- A year after GroundUp first reported on conditions at the Department of Employment and Labour office in Bellville, Cape Town, the situation is worse.
- People queue from the early hours of the morning and are often sent home without service.
- Some UIF claims grasp more than a year to pay out.
It took more than a year for Brackenfell resident Stephan Evans to secure his Unemployment Insurance Fund money from the Department of Employment and Labour office in Bellville, Cape Town.
A year after GroundUp reported on poor service and long queues at the offices at the Middestad Mall office in Bellville, the situation has worsened. Clients are complaining about queueing at dawn and still not receiving aid, a dysfunctional online scheme, delayed payments, depraved treatment and rude officials.
Evans first registered online in May last year. When he didn’t secure feedback, he visited the Bellville offices on 27 February 2023.
He went again on 31 May. “I got there before 6am,” he said. By 11am he got served, but was told his paperwork was incomplete and needed ex-employer and bank signatures. He returned the next day but it was loadshedding and he was told to return another time.
“I went back a week later. After about seven hours of waiting in the queue when I got in front I was told the scheme is offline.”
By 1 August he had still not been paid. “No one answers the phones when you call them,” he said. “You need to be there at 5am again and wait until probably after 2pm to acquire helped. They really are pathetic.”
Evans was finally paid out on 21 August 2023.
When GroundUp visited the offices on 7 September at 7am, there was already a long queue. A man was renting stools for R3 to people tired of standing.
Gail Lewis had travelled from Bishop Lavis and was in third area after joining the queue at 3am. She told GroundUp that the officials let in about 30 people, mainly pregnant women and elderly people. She said she had been waiting for UIF payment after she lost her job of 28 years in June.
“This is my fifth time coming here. The first time I came they said my documents were not correct. The second time there was loadshedding and we were turned away. The third time the scheme was offline. The fourth time they said my papers were factual but I should register online to receive payment. After that I didn’t receive any money or message to say when the money would be paid. That is why I am back to find out what the hold is.”
“I must pay R150 to people who bring me here and I am unemployed. So far I’ve borrowed R800 for transport from money lenders. I must pay interest. I can’t manage my household bills, I’ve no money to buy groceries and pay for school transport.”
Randall Julies has been trying to claim UIF since April. “Three weeks ago I was standing here on the same spot after many failed attempts to secure encourage. The official said I am standing in the wrong line and I must approach back. I told the official that was not the way to work with people: rather guide them before they join the queue. He was rude and insisted that I leave. So I am back again today.”
Another person in the queue who did not want to be named said he had been there for hours. “It is always full here and I wonder why they execute not employ more people. At 4am I was at the taxi rank. I arrived at 5am here from Kuils River and the queue was already at the corner. I acquire been coming here since June.”
“Most of these people in front of me are not going to be helped today, including those with babies on their backs. Two hours before loadshedding they are going to arrive and dismiss us. One time they honest came and told us that the computers were off.”
COSATU spokesperson Matthew Parks said there was a problem at UIF offices across the country, not honest in Bellville. “Workers struggle to access what is due to them when they apply to the UIF. This is because of the inefficiencies at the UIF and also employers failing to pay their funds over to the UIF.”
Parks said COSATU was working with the UIF and the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) to resolve the problems.
Despite promises to comment on this tale, the labour department did not execute so.
© 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and execute not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
We place an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We carry out not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We execute not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please carry out not delete the invisible pixel.
Tin Mutt
Van der Merwe goes to Paris to watch the Boks take on the Brits at the world cup.
Whilst in Paris, he walks around, gaping and staring at everything – so much so that he walks smack bang into a fire hydrant which hits him so hard on the family jewels that he has to be rushed to hospital where the doctors tell him they have to remove his testicles.
Van goes berserk, he bites and snarls at every one and he won\’t let anybody within 10 metres of him. Eventually they find a South African doctor in the hospital and get him to talk to Van.
He walks up to Van and tells him \”Hey Van, die ouens moet jou knaters uithaal.\”
Van replies \”O, okay, ek dog die bliksems wil my test tickets vat.\”
Baby Spell
Fun South African Fact: South African fish migration is so huge you can see it from space.