RAF In the News

Written by Zoleka Qodashe | Published on SABC News on 9 October 2024 The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has again become the centre of attention, this time before the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). Judge Nkosinathi Chili has identified delays in finalising RAF matters as one of the challenges facing the KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court. Chili is being interviewed for the Deputy Judge President of the Division by the JSC in Sandton, Johannesburg. Three candidates are vying for the position. The country’s courts are facing a crisis amid a shortage of judges and an increased workload. The fund’s matters have previously been identified as contributing factors to the national crisis. Chili has laid part of the blame at the doorstep of the RA. He says, “I have identified three challenges which are delays in finalising RAF matters, delays in finalising criminal appeals and outdated recording machines. With regards to

Written by Georgina Crouth | Published on Daily Maverick 03 October 2024 The Road Accident Fund claims unscrupulous lawyers are giving groceries and transport money to claimants as part of a con to swindle them out of money. But the fund itself leaves claimants waiting for years to receive payouts, if at all. Days before the Road Accident Fund (RAF) appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in Parliament and lost its Supreme Court of Appeal challenge against the Auditor-General’s finding that it ignored existing accounting standards and material misstatements, the RAF rustled up its “financial outcomes”, trumpeting that its 2020-2025 strategic plan was working just swell and it was finally on a sustainable financial path. Worth highlighting is that one of the findings of the AG was that the RAF was not aligned with its core mandate to pay compensation, as required by the RAF Act. Nevertheless, in

Written by Zelda Venter | Published on 19 September 2024 While the Road Accident Fund (RAF) this week in presenting its annual financial report said the fund is not out of the woods yet, but it’s heading in the right direction, the Association for the Protection of Road Accident Victims (APRAV) expressed its concerns about the fund’s operations, including the thousands of unregistered claims. The chairperson of APRAV, Pieter de Bruyn, addressed a letter to various stakeholders in response to the RAF’s attack on concerns raised by DA MP Chris Hunsinger, in which he said there is an urgent need to fix the broken fund. The DA’s Chris Hunsinger wrote a letter to the minister last week in which he drew her attention to the fact that the RAF seems to have halted payments for nearly four months. Hunsinger said this state of affairs seems to point to the fund’s

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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