Transport minister Fikile Mbalula yesterday announced the appointment of a permanent board for the Road Accident Fund (RAF).
The new board will replace the interim board that was appointed in July last year.
“We are under no illusion about the challenges facing the fund,” said Mbalula. ““They are huge and require collective effort to resolve,” he said.
The fund is under severe financial and workload pressure, with the minister confirming over R15 billion in unpaid claims and an ever-growing legal bill.
“This means the entity does not have enough money to cover the claims as they are lodged. In the short term, RAF owes R17.2 billion on claims that have been finalised, but has no money to settle these,” Mbalula added.
“This is despite the fact that the RAF is currently sitting with 189 000 open files of claims not yet finalised, which are at litigation stage with different lawyers. The RAF spends R10 billion a year on lawyers.”
During the past financial year alone, 22 366 cases were allocated trial dates, but only 86 of these matters were served before a judge. Part of the board’s duties, Mbalula stressed, would be to ensure these cases went to court.
“The institution also had to pay the legal costs of complainants which amounted to R6.3 billion. This is an area the incoming board will have to pay serious attention to.” – Bjorn Vorster
