Question NW1546 to the Minister of Employment and Labour

Share this page:

06 May 2022 - NW1546

Profile picture: Mkhonto, Ms C N

Mkhonto, Ms C N to ask the Minister of Employment and Labour

What measures has his department put in place to eradicate the long queues in the East London centre of his department?

Reply:

  • Queue marshals have been appointed to manage the queues – they identify the most vulnerable like elderly, ill, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers to ensure they get assisted first.
  • Queue marshals separate queues per speciality i.e.
  • UIF has been allocated three queues; first is for new applications and clients who want to register as work seekers on ESSA, second is for enquiries (clients who have applied but the application is not yet finalised) and the third line is for clients coming to sign (clients who are already getting UIF benefits but must report every month to indicate if they are still unemployed as per Unemployment Insurance Act prescripts), another queue is for those who are coming to lodge a labour complaint against their employer and those who are coming to register/enquire an injury/disease on duty.
  • Manual applications are taken when the system is offline or when the system is slow. In addition to this, UIF clients who are coming to sign (clients already getting UIF benefits) get listed on a register which gets attended to by the processing office staff to process the UIF payment.
  • Encourage online applications and telephonic enquiries where clients have means.
  • In cases of Reduced Work Time (RWT), retrenchments and closure of companies a team is sent to the premises of the employer for collection of documents for new applications and this has assisted to reduce the number of clients coming through to lodge UIF claims in our labour centre.

Source file