A Mpumalanga pensioner who was forced to take early retirement due to Covid-19 says his late Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) claim was rejected unfairly as he was too sick to file on time.
Brian Hlatshwayo, 67, a former editor of Lowveld Media newspapers in Mbombela, said that in 2020, when he was 61, his employer compelled him to leave work on health grounds.
“I was informed by management that according to regulations issued by the state, employees 60 years and above were a health risk to be at work; therefore, I was released from work,” explained Hlatshwayo.
He fell ill immediately after his release and was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent surgery. His health, he said, delayed him from applying for the UIF within the six-month prescribed period after being unemployed.
A year later, in July 2021, he went to apply for the UIF at the Mbombela office, as his salary had been stopped.
“I was asked by the UIF officer why I submitted late. I told him that I was sick, which is a fact because I had been diagnosed with prostate cancer by Dr Pakendorf, who booked me in at Mediclinic for the surgery to take place.
“I also submitted the medical report of Dr Pakendorf, including a letter from my referral doctor, Dr Simangele Nkosi,” said Hlatshwayo.
His application was rejected as the six-month prescribed period had passed.
According to the department of employment and labour spokesperson Teboho Thejane, Hlatshwayo had applied for a normal UIF benefit and not for an illness benefit.
Hlatshwayo, however, disputes this, saying he gave the UIF officer his medical records. “I didn’t do the late application purposefully; I was fighting for my life at the time,” he said.
Thejane said: “The application was refused for late applications since it was lodged after 12 months from the date of termination. An appeal was made on 3 August 2022 and it was refused for late application since it was not made within 90 days from the date of refusal. The appeal form did not state a reason for an appeal. A medical certificate was submitted on 3 September 2024.”
Thejane said both the application and the appeal remain refused for late submission. He stressed that it was important to adhere to the UIF guidelines. “UIF is not an investment, and if you don’t claim for it, the money goes back to the UIF pool to help other workers who are still in the system.
“If you have never claimed you can’t, then say I have worked for 34 years, and I’ve lost my job, and therefore I want my money. There is a cycle that UIF uses to count the credits per every three-year cycle, so you can’t say you want to claim for a particular period.”
He said there is an appeal process in place for any rejected claims.
“If you have resigned, you can’t claim for UIF, but if you have lost your job but could not immediately lodge a claim within six months, you must apply for Just Cause and provide evidence why your claim should be entertained,” said Thejane.
Hlatshwayo said the appeals process was done unfairly. “Whenever I went to the UIF offices in Nelspruit, the officers were not welcoming but crude in a manner that they never were welcoming to resolve the matter amicably and never mentioned any 90 days from the date of refusal.
“The officers never wrote anything down when we communicated, displaying that they were not interested in doing anything further about my application,” said Hlatshwayo.
“Imagine a person having undergone a major operation having to run around with the outstanding matters which were vital for me ... but I expected leniency because of the medical condition I’d been in at that given time. I expected a bit of leniency from our government,” said Hlatshwayo.
