We have been inundated with calls and emails with regards the UIF/TERS process failure which has been caused by the UIF not adhering to the MOA which they signed with the BIBC.
In an attempt to assist our members, whilst their hands are now effectively tied, the BIBC have put together some advice for Employers below.
We appeal to our members to refrain from attacking the BIBC as it relates to this issue. This has arisen due to incompetence on the part of the UIF/TERS systems and processes.
We would like to thank the BIBC for their concerted effort in trying to assist our membership in this regard and for their long hours spent on this process. It is most disappointing that their efforts have been - on the whole - in vain.
Kind regards,
Allen Bodill
Executive Director
BIBC UIF TERS ASSISTANCE PROJECT
Dear Employer,
The BIBC acted in good faith when we engaged with the UIF TER Scheme. A dedicated team of remote workers spent many overtime hours, working well into the night to assist our industry.
The motive for our positive response to the Department of Labour request for our involvement stemmed from a deep concern for the economic impact of the sudden closing of our industry on fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and breadwinners in our communities.
As per our communication of yesterday, the UIF has made a decision, without any consultation with the BIBC to process the claims of employers as individual claims. This is a major deviation from the agreement with the UIF and the understanding that the BIBC had pertaining to the assistance to employers in this regard. The UIF decision to send the error reports and payments directly to employers, means that the BIBC has been removed from this process with no prior warning. As a result, we are also unable to view any information relating to the status of individual employer claims pertaining to employees. The BIBC continues to try to reach the senior UIF consultants who were assisting us in the initial process so that we, in turn, may assist you.
Subsequent to the previous email correspondence regarding the UIF TERS Covid-19 submission, we have received many calls from employers. There are employers who have been paid directly and those who have not received any payment from the UIF. Thank you to those companies who accept that we have done our best to assist and have helped us to understand errors in the UIF applications. With gratitude to those companies, we share these learnings below, as the most common errors identified.
Please note: The BIBC did not submit the claim under individual employer UIF reference numbers and in no way interfered with individual employer passwords on this UIF portal. We do not have this level of access to UIF systems at all. The fact that employers cannot get into their employer profiles is not due to any action followed by the BIBC and this needs to be taken up with the UIF.
Error code: Employees not registered with UIF/Not found
There is general confusion relating to this issue. Employers are under the belief that by paying over monthly UIF contributions to SARS, that the employees are automatically registered with the UIF. This is in fact not the case. Employees need to be properly registered under YOUR employer profile at the UIF. In some of cases that we are seeing, the entire file has been rejected when a few employees were not found to be properly registered by the employer. To address this error:
If you are not already registered on this platform, then you need to do this first. Follow the prompts on the website;
Once registered as an Employer with a UIF profile, log into the system;
Register your employees;
Follow the instructions in the letter attached to send the proof of registration to the COVID-19 contact email provided, see heading 'In terms of the number of employees not paid':
Error code: 'Average Salary from Employer not Found'
Where this error appears, some employers are able to edit it directly while others are not. When we considered the examples sent to us by employers, we were unable to determine why there would be a difference. Attempts to find out directly from the UIF have thus far been unsuccessful. Our advice in this regard follows:
Fixing this error
The hourly paid employees remuneration must be converted from an hourly to a monthly rate. The formula to create a monthly amount is:
Hourly rate x Number of hours worked per day x Number of days worked per month.
Example: R35.00 x 8hrs x 21.67 days per month = R6067.60
For salaried staff, insert the monthly remuneration.
General advice
There are queries relating to the information that is required for the 'sector minimum wage'. There is no prescribed sector minimum wage for salaried staff and occupations not covered by the National Minimum Wage (NMW) Act and who are excluded in the BIBC Collective Agreement (CA). In this case, and because it is a required field, the BIBC have captured the information as follows:
Salaried Staff and categories not covered by the CA : Base this on your own salary scales for occupations not included in the NMW;
Wage Staff: [Sector min hourly rate x hours worked per day x days worked per month];
Example of Labourer: R30.04 x 8 hours per day x 21.67 days = R5207.73
2.
There are cases where any error on the file including employees not properly registered, has resulted in the rejection of the whole file;
3.The contact details that are shared on the uFiling and UIF-Covid-19 websites are provided in the two inserts below for your convenience.
