RAF PERFORMANCE: CONTEXT AND AGSA OUTCOMES
- In 2019, the Road Accident Fund (RAF) Board was appointed and tasked with turning the organisation around. The RAF was confronted with a myriad of challenges at the time, key amongst which was the risk to its financial and operational sustainability. It is important to indicate that these were not contemporary challenges which started in 2019, but in fact date back to the Fund’s establishment on 01 May 1946, as a compulsory insurance scheme under the Motor Vehicle Assurance Act 29 of 1942. The Fund’s legislative framework has undergone six amendments over the years, with no less than seven commissions of enquiries being established to enquire into the structural defects in its funding and operating models.
- Following the 1998 white paper, The Satchwell Commission was subsequently established in order to avert what was clearly considered a crisis at the time. The problem statement for the commission was:
- The system at the time was financially unsustainable, and measures needed to be taken to achieve a system that would be affordable and stable in the long term and yet be able to offer a reasonable set of benefits. Page 2 of 13
- The system needed to be made more efficient, thus reducing the high cost at that time in terms of time, effort and expertise incurred in the process of delivering the benefits.
- The system had to be more effective, thus avoiding the shortcomings, anomalies and inequities at that time.