Suspended UIF commissioner paid R1.4 million to sit at home

Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) commissioner Teboho Maruping has been paid R1.4 million over the last year by the Department of Employment and Labour while on precautionary suspension. 

According to a response to a parliamentary question posed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) Spokesperson on Employment and Labour, Michael Bagraim, to Minister Nomakhosazana Meth, the commissioner has been earning his full salary since his suspension. 

Maruping was suspended in September 2024 after he was implicated in the unlawful R5 billion Thuja Capital contract. 

The contract promised to create 25,000 jobs. It would have given the UIF a 19% stake in Thuja’s investments. 

This would have included a R1 billion investment into an unnamed bank and insurance company, R2.5 billion being given to unemployed individuals to start businesses, and R1.5 billion for providing loans to businesses.

An investigation by Times Live, however, discovered that Thuja Capital had no premises, website, or track record. 

The court set the deal aside, ruling it invalid. The Department then suspended Maruping in September for his failure to conduct due diligence and intimidation of UIF officials who raised concerns. 

The disciplinary process has, according to the DA’s Bagraim, moved at a snail’s pace. The justice process for the commissioner’s role in the scandal is still underway, over a year after the suspension. 

Evidence was only wrapped up in September 2025, and final arguments are only due on 12 October.  The hearing will then reconvene on 20 October.

Upon Maruping’s suspension, Minister Meth said that the disciplinary process would “be dealt with expeditiously, as we need to refocus the UIF to its mandate of providing social benefits to workers, as a matter of urgency.”

Bagraim said this follows a worrying pattern. “Maruping previously sat at home on full pay between 2020 and 2022 while facing another disciplinary process over irregular spending,” he said. 

This case was linked to the COVID-19  Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) scheme. “By the time the current case concludes, he will have spent roughly a quarter of his tenure suspended with benefits,” said Bagraim. 

A familiar pattern

Maruping was first suspended in 2020 after the Auditor General found irregularities in the COVID-19 relief payment. 

He was allowed to return to work in 2022 after an investigation by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) found that he did not benefit from the TERS program through corrupt or fraudulent means.

Bagraim said that millions of South Africans are struggling to find work and rely on UIF to survive, but they cannot afford to watch their contributions wasted on “endless suspensions for executives who should have been held to account long ago.”

During his time as UIF commissioner, unions, including Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) and COSATU, have called for UIF to be placed under administration for systematic failures, lengthy delays in processing applications, and constantly changing requirements. 

The Parliamentary committee on Economic Development and Trade held a meeting in September 2025 to discuss the UIF’s chronic financial mismanagement. 

The Auditor General found that, in the last financial year, the UIF distributed over R800 million in temporary employer/employee relief scheme funding, but that R200 million remained unaccounted for. 

The Auditor General was unable to verify some of the companies that received these payments. 

“These systemic failures have persisted for far too long. Work on improving UIF systems cannot continue indefinitely without results,” Chairperson of the committee, Sonja Boshoff, said.

“At some point, this entity must reach stability and fully deliver on the mandate for which it was created.”