Dear valued client,

If your company applied and received COVID-19 TERS benefits then you should be aware that Phase 2 of the UIF audits on companies who benefited from COVID-19 TERS funds will be starting soon.

The UIF is likely to start during December 2021.

The UIF has communicated that it has the right and intent to audit employers at any given time by an appointed auditor and failure to co-operate can lead to the following course of action by the UIF:
• Refer your company to the SIU or the Hawks for further investigation.
• Recognise the whole COVID-19 TERS funds as an overpayment and a debt collection process will follow.
• Block the employer from applying for any further COVID-19 TERS funds.

A recent LinkedIn survey we conducted with our contacts showed that 81% of the responses were not ready for a UIF-COVID-19 TERS Post verification Audit.

From our experiences during Phase 1 many of the companies we were tasked to audit encountered problems in the following to name a few areas:

• Providing all the required documentation in the required format within the acceptable time. The acceptable time being less than 5 days, from date of our request.
• Providing Bank statements that at that stage were over 1 year prior, displaying the employee information and UIF information required to conduct the audit.
• Proof that the company experienced a loss in revenue during the period they claimed UIF-COVID-19 TERS relief.

The above excludes the further problems companies encountered in providing any additional information we required during their audit.

We are ready to help your company be ready for the audit with the following options:

1. Meeting to go through our preparedness questionnaire.
2. Examining all your company’s information and documentation required for your audit, is correct and available for the appointed auditor.
3. Conduct a UIF-COVID-19 TERS compliance review to identify any issues that can crop up during your audit by the UIF appointed auditor.

Contact Mike Rissik on either:

Email: mike.rissik@pkf.co.za
Mobile: +27 71 864 6043

We look forward to being of help soon.

Regards,

PKF VGA (East Rand)