Still waiting 9 months later for an UNEMPLOYMENT claim ridiculous

I app**** for UNEMPLOYMENT on the 30th November 2020, received an sms with my claim number. Since then no one has ever contacted me unless I had to call and email to follow up. Till this date my last status update was the 31st March 2021 to advise the application was completed by an assessor. But no one ever bothered to advise that they were requiring some documentation. Towards the end of June I had sent and made sure that they had received all the documentation and was constantly advised that it has been sent to the documents department for capturing. I get this same answer every week I call to follow up and they always apologize for the inconvenience and blame that they have a back log. Now my understanding is there have been so many claims since mine has been sent and those people have received their claim payouts why am I not entitled to my unemployment payout? I was unemployed since 19th November 2020 till 31st March 2021 which is 4 and a half months of unemployment. I have never defaulted my contributions and only had ever claimed once for maternity leave back in 2014 which was also a long struggle to get my payment. No one in the department can give me actual feedback as to why the claim is taking so long this is extremely frustrating. Why must we pay uif contributions if we are unable to get it?