FF Plus questions Minister Meth's claims on maternity benefits backlog

The Freedom Front Plus has voiced its strong skepticism following Employment and Labour Minister Nomakhosana Meth's assertion that there are no backlogs in the payment of maternity benefits claims from previous years.

The party’s MP, Heloise Denner, stated that Meth’s claim of all maternity leave claims being fully up to date, with the exception of the current year, is difficult to accept as credible.

“The minister’s assertion that there is not a single outstanding claim, apart from the current financial year, is simply not true. Given the ANC’s track record of poor service delivery, it is hard to believe that one department functions so flawlessly,” she said.

This comes after she received replies from Meth when she asked about the total number of claims for maternity benefits from the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) that were submitted in the 2023 and 2024 financial years, as well as from January 1, 2025, to date.

In her reply, Meth said a total of 99 945 maternity benefit claims were received in 2023/24 and 187 909 were paid to the tune of R1.7 billion.

She also said 119 893 claims were received in 2024/25 and 220 810 claims were paid to the value of R1.7 billion.

“Claimants can receive multiple payments for a single claim, which is why the number of payments processed may be higher than the number of claims received,” she said.

Meth said 30 708 claims were received in the 2025/26 financial year, 62 218 payments were made to the value of R505 million, and that the backlogs stood at 2 626.

She said the current backlog in processing the claims was primarily due to the submission of incomplete applications, particularly with issues relating to the declaration form.

“A recurring problem is that employers continue to declare employees as ‘active’ even after they go on maternity leave, rather than indicating a termination reason and date on the declaration form. As a result, the employee's status reflects ongoing employment, which leads to discrepancies during claim assessment and delays processing.”

Denner said her party regularly received complaints from women across the country who have waited years for their maternity leave claims to pay out.

“Even among the party’s own staff there are individuals fighting ongoing battles over unpaid claims, which have been delayed for over a year.

“Submitted documents are lost, not processed and must be resubmitted repeatedly,” she said.

Denner noted with concern that there was unfortunately no record of the extent of the problem.

“The department pretends its' work is up to date, but the party has reason to believe the backlogs are substantial,” she added.

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