President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised to step in and help fix the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), as millions of South African workers wait months — and sometimes years — for money they are owed.
The move follows a decision by Business Unity South Africa (Busa) to pull its representatives out of the UIF board and related structures at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac). Busa says it is acting after six years of trying, without success, to get the fund to reform.
The Presidency says Ramaphosa has met with organised labour to discuss the crisis at the UIF and the Compensation Fund, which covers workers injured or made ill on the job.
The UIF paid out R18 billion to 3.1 million people in the 2024/25 financial year. But the fund has been hit by a troubled switch to a new online claims system, a growing backlog of claims, and years of governance problems.
What went wrong
The UIF began moving away from its old uFiling system in April 2025, switching claimants over to a new platform called UIF Online. By April 2026, the new system had processed and paid out more than 4.5 million claims — up from around 3.5 million processed the year before under the old system. Even so, many workers say they are still waiting far too long for pay-outs, and the fund has faced a growing backlog of unresolved claims.
The fund’s former commissioner, Teboho Maruping, was dismissed at the end of February this year after earning close to R2.5 million while on suspension since September 2024. His suspension was linked to a R5 billion contract the UIF signed with Thuja Capital, which the Pretoria High Court later set aside for breaching the Public Finance Management Act.
The Auditor-General has repeatedly given the UIF a qualified audit opinion in recent years, pointing to weak internal controls and problems verifying claims — including payments made through the Covid-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS).
The UIF board itself has also come under fire. It has no real decision-making power of its own — it can only advise the Minister — and meetings have often been called or rescheduled at short notice, making it hard for members to prepare. This has repeatedly stopped the board from reaching a quorum.
Stakeholders run out of patience
In June, South Africa’s major labour federations — Cosatu, Saftu, Fedusa and Nactu — jointly called on Ramaphosa to step in over the UIF’s failures. Two weeks later, Busa announced it was withdrawing from UIF structures, saying the move was needed to protect its representatives’ reputations and to send a clear message that the situation could not continue.
Busa has called on Employment and Labour Minister Nomakhosazana Meth to place the UIF under administration, with an independent administrator brought in to stabilise operations, clear the claims backlog and fix governance problems. It has also called for a forensic investigation into the fund’s spending, saying it is concerned that money is being redirected to programmes that mainly benefit people who don’t contribute to the fund, while contributors face delays and exclusion.
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Management under strain
With Maruping gone, the UIF has been operating under acting leadership while facing mounting operational pressure. In December 2025, the Special Investigating Unit — acting under a presidential proclamation issued in 2021 — carried out search-and-seizure operations in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, targeting officials suspected of helping to process fraudulent claims and of diverting around R161 million from the TERS scheme.
Despite the turmoil, the fund remains financially sound. It reported a surplus of R23 billion for the 2024/25 financial year.
What happens next
While Ramaphosa’s involvement signals that government now recognises the scale of the crisis, the Department of Employment and Labour says no formal request to place the UIF under administration has yet reached the President’s desk. The UIF itself has urged stakeholders to keep engaging with it, arguing that withdrawing from governance structures won’t fix operational problems — such as employers submitting incorrect declarations.
But with millions of workers depending on UIF payouts for their basic survival, the pressure on government to act is only growing. The fund provides short-term relief to people who lose their jobs, or who cannot work because of illness, maternity, adoption or parental leave — making it a critical part of South Africa’s social safety net.
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