The government has done what it can for a group of protesting former miners from the Eastern Cape, and urged them to go back home.
”We are not resisting to pay the claims; we are willing to, especially when it comes to the elderly,” Boas Seruwe, acting Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) commissioner, said in Pretoria on Tuesday.
Seruwe and Percy Mahlathi, Deputy Director General of Labour, explained that those who had valid UIF claims — or claims against a fund for miners with lung disease — have already been paid. The remaining claims are harder to verify.
The group, consisting mostly of elderly members of the Union of Ex-Mineworkers of South Africa, gathered about three weeks ago at the Union Buildings. They demanded compensation and pensions due to them from their time working in the country’s mines — for some, as long as 20 years ago.
Tshwane metro police relocated the group to the city hall last week, and on Monday forcibly moved them from there to the Schubart Park Flats and another shelter in the city centre where they have been supplied with food and blankets.
Seruwe said the UIF originally received a list of 2 500 former miners claiming unemployment insurance. ”Only 500 of those were found to be on our system and we paid out money to those who had legitimate claims,” he said.
He said the UIF requested the union to ask members who were not on the system to provide them with dates and places of employment. The department is trying to establish who among them have legitimate claims.
The Department of Health in the meantime paid out 11 317 claims against a fund totalling R54-million from the former Transkei government.
”We are working with the union to help other members who feel they still have claims,” said Mahlathi.
Thabo Masebe, of the Government Communications and Information System, said it seems union leaders keep ”moving the goal posts”. — Sapa