RAF In the News

Written by Chris Hunsinger | Published on BusinessDay on 17 September 2024 It is a tragedy that practical, easily implementable solutions have been on the table for years. In her July budget speech, transport minister Barbara Creecy promised that “a key priority for the next financial year will be the stabilisation and improved governance of the department and its entities”. In the same speech she revealed that each year our country sees more than 10,000 fatal motor vehicle accidents, which the Road Traffic Management Corporation estimates amount to almost 3% of our annual GDP. Over the years we have seen a worrying disconnect between the department of transport and one of its key entities, the Road Accident Fund (RAF). Veiled by well-oiled public relations machinery, the RAF’s board and CEO have been operating unchecked and without proper oversight for far too long, jeopardising the claims of hundreds of thousands of road

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

Written by Dianne Hawker | Published on 05 September 2024 Hundreds of Road Accident Fund cases are clogging the court roll in Gauteng and lawyers say the organisation is not making enough effort to ensure cases are finalised quickly. If you were involved in a catastrophic car accident today, it could take you more than five years to have your Road Accident Fund (RAF) claim dispute heard in court and possibly longer to receive your payment. This is the situation facing hundreds of RAF and other personal injury claimants affected by a growing backlog in the Gauteng Division of the High Court, based in Pretoria and Johannesburg. The earliest trial date available for RAF cases is in October 2029, while it’s November 2027 for cases against the police and February 2027 for divorces. Lawyers who have spoken to Daily Maverick about the crisis place the blame squarely at the door

Published on Sunday World on 4 September 2024 Four provinces – Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape, and the Eastern Cape – currently bear 73% of crime levels in South Africa. This is according to Police Minister Senzo Mchunu. He said the gravity of these crimes alone, including extortion, was of serious concern to the police. Mchunu stated that the police are hard at work fighting extortion and other related crimes in parts of the country on a daily basis. “The modus operandi of the perpetrators involved in these heinous acts is well-known,” according to Mchunu. “Most of them are individuals who do not want to work but rather choose to parade as armies of murderous parasites that must be fought and rejected by society as a whole,” Mchunu said. The minister was addressing parliament on Tuesday on measures taken by the police to deal with threats posed by extortion. Communities

Issued by Dr Chris Hunsinger MP | Published on 03 September 2024 The DA wrote to the Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy, to urgently draw her attention to the fact that the Road Accident Fund (RAF) seems to have halted payments for nearly four months. This state of affairs seems to point to the fund’s imminent implosion without prompt intervention from either the Transport Minister or the Portfolio Committee on Transport. Over the years, we have seen a worrying disconnect between the Department of Transport and one of its key entities, the Road Accident Fund (RAF). The RAF CEO and the Board have been operating unchecked and without proper oversight for too long. Having six Transport Ministers in only seven years has produced a perfect environment in which the RAF, for example, can pick which sections of the RAF Act to apply and which not to apply, based on what

Written by Roy Cokayne | Published on 25 July 2024 The civil justice system in Gauteng is in crisis, with a shortage of judges to hear and adjudicate civil trials and the high volume of cases being lodged leading to delays of up to five years before a matter is heard. Nicolette de Witt, chair of the High Court Committee of the Pretoria Attorneys Association (PAA), said civil trials in the High Court in Pretoria are currently being allocated for January 2029 and the waiting time between the date of allocation of civil hearing dates and the hearing date itself “has reached an astonishing period of four and a half years”. “These lead times are the longest they have been in the history of this division of the High Court,” she said. “Under the [prevailing] circumstances … in Pretoria, the civil justice system is failing South African citizens and depriving