Pay back the money, says department

Update

GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - The Uniondale Integrated Empowerment Project (Uniep) will have to pay back the Ters funds it had received from the Department of Employment and Labour (DOL), "subject to some employees [who had received payouts from the funds] confirming they were indeed employed during this period".

This is according to the department's provincial chief inspector, David Esau. Last week, George Herald reported on a media statement by the Labour Department to the effect that Uniep, a non-profit organisation from Uniondale, was being investigated for applying for and receiving almost R5-million from the Covid-19 Temporary Employer / Employee Relief Scheme (Ters).

According to the department, it had received a complaint that funds had been paid out to over 500 employees whose contracts of employment had been terminated on 25 March 2020, just before lockdown.

This while the Ters fund is only for workers whose salaries have been affected by the lockdown period while they were still employed.

Furthermore, a number of workers had signed an agreement to the effect that a small percentage may be subtracted for administration costs.

According to the department, it would be laying fraud charges with the police, but yesterday, Wednesday 18 November, Southern Cape police spokesperson Sgt Chris Spies said no such case had been opened.

Uniep has in the meantime accused the department of being pre-emptive in issuing a media statement claiming fraud. Uniep had said that many of the issues raised by the department were "tenuous and pre-emptive" and were made without "even considering many of the submissions made to DOL, invalidating the negative assertions made in the media release".