To
Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour
From
Janay Jarvis
Subject
Turn around time in maternity benefit payouts
Date
5 May 2022 12:23 p.m.
Dear Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour, I have submitted my documents to the department of labour since January 2022. My maternity leave officially started on the 1st of Feb 2022. To date I have only received the run around from the uif department and its consultants.

They have closed my application several times and I have to reapply and resubmit my documents each time. Finally in March i had received confirmation that all the documents are correct and my application has been sent for review by the assessor. It is now May and my last month of maternity and still have not received any confirmation if my application being approved and payment being made.

Since March the consultants have all confirmed my documents are correct, on May 03 I called again only for the consultnat to advise me my documents have not been processed. It will now be processed and all I can do is wait for the assessor to approve. They keep escalating and telling me to call back after 2 days if I have not had any feedback, only to be told the same thing 2 days later.

My understanding if the maternity benefit is to assist you financially while on maternity leave and while not receiving a full salary, I have received no such support from the department and being the only breadwinner of the family had left a great strain on our family for 4 months.

To this date still no feedback has been received and the department and its consultants are of no help.

I urgently need assistance on this matter as it is taking a lot of my time and affecting my mental health while taking care if a new baby who is also in need of additional medical care.

Kind regards
Janay Jarvis