IN QUOTES | Here's government's plan to deal with layoffs after the unrest

Labour and employment minister Thulas Nxesi has commended businesses that plan to rebuild after recent unrest in parts of the country.

Nxesi was briefing the media on Wednesday about the Covid-19 alert level 3 measures.

He urged affected businesses to provide accurate figures of employees who lost an income after the unrest, which rocked parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal earlier this month.

Here are seven important quotes from the briefing on the government's plan to rebuild after the unrest: 

Find out how many workers are affected

“We call upon all employers and the small businesses, the shops and big employers who are affected to ensure that they work with us in supplying the correct statistics of the workers who are affected. We are also doing our own processes, verifying those figures in a robust way.”

Broaden the scope of the Unemployment Insurance Act to help affected workers

“The current benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act are the only interventions available to cover the affected workers. However, to ensure that some of the basic tenets of the Act are not violated, the department is going to draft a special directive dealing with the affected workers in the two provinces.

“The spirit of the directive would be to ensure that workers who would normally not qualify for these benefits due to non-compliance with the Act are able to access the benefits.”

Provide Ters for businesses affected

“Businesses or companies in distress after the unrest may also apply for the normal Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters). Ters is designed to assist companies who are temporarily in distress, but with a plan to turn the business around within 6 to 12 months.”  

Prevent fraud

“With Ters, there was a lot of inflation of numbers and we're going to be looking for that. We have to be very careful. Sometimes if we're slow it's because we're trying to make sure these are the correct figures.”

UIF to prioritise retrenched workers

“It's a reality that some businesses will not recover from the damage they have suffered which will result in retrenchments. The UIF will ensure that it prioritises those retrenched workers of employees in some of the labour activation programmes designed to place retrenched workers in employment opportunities.” 

Speed up building permits to help the rebuild 

“We commend those companies who have committed to rebuilding factories, shops and warehouses. The department administers the construction regulations which require that construction works permit to be issued to companies that want to undertake to build.

“Often this process takes about 30 days. Our inspection and enforcement services will hasten to facilitate the issuing of construction work permits to construction companies to ensure the speedy rebuilding of damaged infrastructure.”

Compensation fund for those sick or injured in the line of duty

“The Compensation Fund continues to support those who have become sick in the line of duty and so far, just under R90m has been disbursed for temporary total disablement, medical aid, permanent disablement, funeral costs and dependent benefits.