Written By Abongwe Kobokana | Published on 29 July 2026 | SABC News
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) Chairperson Songezo Zibi says previous Road Accident Fund(RAF) executives and board members must personally pay back the unaccounted money spent during their tenure.
Zibi says this is part of the recommendations that the committee plans to make in its report in the inquiry into the affairs of the RAF.
He says the committee is compiling its report, which it plans to finalise soon on its inquiry into allegations of governance failures, procurement irregularities and deteriorating financial management at the state-supported insurance fund.
Zibi says, “In such cases the committee may then, pursuant to legal advice, recommend all of those monies be recovered from the responsible officials and the board members. There are many decisions like that where we are going to look carefully at each one and determine if recovery is necessary, and I am certain this will not be the only one.”
LITIGATION
He also says they will recommend that millions of rands spent on litigation by the RAF be recovered.
Zibi says the committee has found that previous RAF executives under the leadership of former CEO Collins Letsoalo spent a huge amount of money fighting the audit findings of the Auditor General.
He says in their report, they will recommend that there must be guidelines in the selection of people to be appointed board members.
They will also propose that all previous claims that were not registered due to expiry of the duration in lodging a claim be processed.
Zibi says, “One of the areas in which the committee has already discussed in this regard has to do with the needless litigation against the Auditor General that has cost cumulatively around 20 million in terms of what the Road Accident Fund has spent on lawyers and in terms of what the Auditor General has spent on lawyers. ”
He says, “The decision itself appears to have been taken through fraudulent means by misleading the board, withholding the documents, supplying documents without context and so on.”
Watch SABC News as SCOPA Chairperson Songezo Zibi outlines their SAPS meeting on RAF corruption.