The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has reportedly opened a fourth case with the Hawks for the abuse of COVID-19 temporary employee/employer scheme funds by either companies or individuals.
UIF commissioner Teboho Maruping said a fourth case has been opened with the Hawks against a company, who allegedly received over R700,000.
The case comes in the midst of calls for the R38 billion paid to over 600,000 companies to be probed following allegations that some employers have withheld the funds or lied about their employees not working during the lockdown.
In June, an individual working for a benefitting company was arrested after they were caught to have transferred over R5 million meant for the distressed business’ workers into their account.
The UIF says it will be appointing forensic auditors to follow the trail of the monies paid to companies, however, it is also one of the entities being audited by the auditor general over 2019 relief funds.
Meanwhile, reports say the UIF has already recovered millions of rands from the bank accounts of individuals where funds were erroneously paid either when companies sent the wrong account details or employees intentionally defrauded the system.
