Dear Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour,

It is so sad to see that I am one of the many South African citizen's that is experiencing the same issue with UIF department.

I've applied for Mat benefit early March 2021 via U-Filing, the system did not give an option to upload my documents. I then called the call center where I was sent a link to upload my documents to and was asked to contact them again within a week, which I did. I was told that they received all documents and will forwards to the "Assessor" for processing.

Weeks went by and I heard nothing, no SMS or Email, I then called again to do a follow up just to find out that they went onto a new system in June hence they can't track my documents. I had to resend all documents and was assigned with a case number for reference (which actually means nothing, cos they don't even read notes, if any are even made). Weeks passed and turned into months, I keep calling every week to do follow ups but the same song is played: its still with the assessor and was told the the assessor is an electronic system that 'ADMIN" needs to handle.

After numerous calls, a year later I was told that there is documents missing, this after I've been calling weekly and was assured that all documents are in order and UIF is just having a backlog. I've submitted all document again in FEB 2022 and till date: 08 June 2022, I still receive the same response from the call center: "your application is with the assessor, we send a follow-up/query to admin, please call again in 7 days should you not receive feedback."

This is time consuming, it drains us as consumers mentally! I had to borrow money which I'm still having consequences (accounts paid late, interest added, etc.) all because UIF department cannot fulfill there duties to citizens!

I hope my plea does not fall on blind eyes nor deaf ears, but UIF need to start providing us with better services and answer.

Kind Regards
L Simpson