RAF In the News

Written by Sipho Mabena | Published on News24 – 21 April 2024 To read the article on News24, click the button below: Read more

Issued by Chris Hunsinger, DA Shadow Minister of Transport | Published on 12 April 2024 DA MP says management at Hospicare is scraping at the bottom of the barrel to fund patients’ basic needs. Victims of traffic accidents are facing additional distress because the Road Accident Fund (RAF) has failed to make payments to their healthcare provider, Hospicare. Already management is scraping at the bottom of the barrel to fund patients’ basic needs. Adding to the crisis, the DA can confirm that, Hospicare, which is currently unable to settle bills amounting to R21 million, has received an eviction notice from lawyers representing the building’s owner, President Ramaphosa. The crisis reflects the severe financial difficulties that led to the closure of Sunshine Hospital in Gauteng in April 2023, which also resulted from the RAF’s failure to disperse due payments. These healthcare facilities are vital. They enable the RAF to fulfil its

The high court in Pretoria has for the second time scrapped the Road Accident Fund’s (RAF’s) attempts to impose onerous new requirements on traffic accident victims seeking compensation from the fund. In a judgment handed down on Wednesday, a full bench ruled that a board notice and linked RAF1 form published in May 2022 setting out new requirements for lodging claims were unlawful and set them aside. The court ordered the transport minister to devise a new version within six months, and said claimants who had failed to meet these mandatory requirements could resubmit their claims using the simpler RAF1 form that was brought into effect in 2008. The ruling has wide-reaching implications, as tens of thousands of unsuccessful claimants may now have a second chance at securing compensation for their injuries…

Written by Tania Heyns | Published on 21 March 2024 Prokureurs in Gauteng wag so lank as vier jaar vir ʼn plek op die hofrol in die hooggeregshof vir sake wat verband hou met handelsreg of ʼn eis teen die Padongelukkefonds (POF). Dit is omdat daar klaarblyklik te min regters én hofsale is om sake aan te hoor. Verskeie Gautengse prokureurs het vandeesweek aan Maroela Media gesê dat hulle tans tot vier jaar lank vir ʼn verhoordatum in die Pretoriase hooggeregshof wag. Die waglys vir ʼn datum in die hooggeregshof in Johannesburg lyk nie veel beter nie. “Pretoria en Johannesburg is die twee besigste howe in die land. Die kort en die lank is ons het meer regters en howe nodig,” sê Tiaan Joubert, voorsitter van die Gautengse Prokureursvereniging en ondervoorsitter van die Pretoriase Prokureursvereniging. ʼn Betroubare bron, ʼn persoon wat verskeie vergaderings bygewoon het waartydens die probleem met Dunstan

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has served the Road Accident Fund with a 48 hour notice to strike. We are mobilizing our members for a shutdown of all RAF offices on Thursday the 14th of March and on that day, we will march to the offices of the National Department of Transport in Pretoria to hand over a memorandum of demands, to the minister of Transport to Sindisiwe Chikunga listing all the problems at the organization. We are demanding that RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo must be removed because of the disastrous state of the entity. RAF is a public entity whose core function is to compensate victims of road accidents.Mr. Letsoalo behaves as if he is untouchable which is why the RAF is in shambles. There is a complete failure to regulate his behaviour, and it seems even the board of the RAF is helpless in

Written by Roy Cokayne | Published on 5 Mar 2024 It failed to heed advice to stop litigation against the Auditor-General… Just a few months into its tenure, the new board of the Road Accident Fund (RAF) is facing the threat of being declared delinquent after failing to reverse the decision of the previous board to institute litigation against the Auditor-General (AG). The legal action centres on the appropriate accounting standard to be used to prepare its 2021/22 financial results and the board’s rejection of directives the fund was given not to proceed with this litigation. RAF board chair Zanele Francois told Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) last month the new board, which was appointed on 1 October 2023, had found no compelling reasons to change the previous board’s decision to institute litigation against the AG. Scopa was told the case was heard before a full bench of three judges in

Written by Zelda Venter | Published on 21 Feb 2024 The Road Accident Fund (RAF) is wrong in insisting that it is not liable to compensate road accident victims for claims for medical expenses incurred by members of medical aid schemes, the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria said. The court turned down an urgent application by the RAF brought in December to sidestep the payment of R33 million it owed a number of claimants for medical expenses paid to their medical aids following their injuries. The court at the time turned the fund’s application down and slapped the already cash-strapped RAF with a punitive costs order against it. The court this week issued its reasons – on the request of the fund – for its findings. The RAF argued that it should not be liable for past medical expenses where the injured person is a member of a medical scheme. This

Issued by Alf Lees MP – DA Member of SCOPA | Published on 07 Feb 2024 The DA will be pursuing charges against Road Accident Fund (RAF) executives, under the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliaments and Provincial Legislatures Act, 2004, for misleading Parliament by repeatedly insisting on using an accounting standard that falsifies the RAF’s current debt profile by as much as 90%. RAF CEO, Collins Letsoalo, and the RAF Board are asking Parliament to exercise its oversight role on financial statements that are misleading and do not reflect the true nature of RAF’s debt position, which at this point is estimated to be R300 billion. Such misrepresentation of information essentially amounts to fraud. Courts have previously ruled that presenting false information to Parliament is fraud, stating that “If Parliament is misled, or if individual members thereof are misled, whether expressly or by the withholding of information that must