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City Press reports that the Road Accident Fund (RAF) has been unable to pay expenses like salaries because its bank accounts have been attached.
In the meantime, the fund owes R17 billion to people across the country who have suffered losses due to road accidents, but who are still waiting to receive their compensation. In an urgent application in the Pretoria High Court last week, the RAF had two requests, namely for the Sheriff of Pretoria East to return control of its eight Absa bank accounts to it, and for the court to make a permanent special arrangement that would give the RAF the leeway to pay claims within 180 days instead of 30. However, Judge Selby Baqwa scrapped the urgent application from the roll, with costs. Collins Letsoalo, the RAF’s acting CEO, painted a grim picture in the fund’s court papers. The RAF gets R3.5 billion from fuel levies every month, but has to pay out on average R4.3 billion in claims. This is before it has even paid salaries or other expenses. Previously it was reported that the RAF was from time to time forced to lease chairs and tables because the Sheriff regularly attached the organisation’s furniture. An attorney from Pretoria East who did not want to be identified said that his clients, on average, waited for five months for their claims to be paid. “In the meantime, the RAF has a very luxurious office in Centurion and its annual report is printed on expensive glossy paper – all of it a waste of money,” he noted.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Jeanne-Marie Versluis at City Press
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