Crucial UIF digital services have ground to a halt after the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) granted an interdict blocking an unnamed service provider from working on the fund's online portals.

News24 reports that the Department of Employment & Labour says key UIF online systems had been disrupted by the ruling and that extra capacity had been added at UIF physical service points to mitigate the challenges.

‘We are anticipating that the disruption will result in increased volumes of clients at our service points. We therefore wish to sincerely apologise to our clients and stakeholders for the delays and any inconvenience emanating from the disruption of UIF online platforms,’ the statement said. 

The court issued an interim interdict on 30 August, which prevents a service provider from rendering online portal services for the UIF with immediate effect.

The service provider was not named.

The department said that the uFiling, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, Virtual Office as well as the UIF Covid19 TERS systems are currently disrupted.

UIF Commissioner Teboho Maruping told News24 that the interdict against the unnamed service provider had been brought by a losing service provider.

The new service provider was appointed after the contract of the previous provider expired.

Full News24 report