Two men appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Monday on charges of defrauding the Road Accident Fund.
Danie Johannes Basson and Rudolf Percy Mathea were among 17 people from all over Gauteng arrested on similar charges in the past week, Gauteng police representative Director Henriette Bester said.
Basson was freed on R3 000 bail and is to appear in court again on June 10. Mathea is to remain in custody until his next court appearance on Monday next week.
The two men were arrested on Friday.
Fifteen other people arrested on Wednesday and Thursday last week have all appeared in court. Five were ordered to remain in custody and the rest were freed on bail.
Three of the 15, Lettie, Dolf and Andre Rossouw, are to appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court again on Tuesday, Bester said. The remainder are to appear in the same court on June 11.
Bester said the men and women are suspected of having submitted false or inflated claims to the RAF.
Some are also believed to have provided information on accidents to so-called scouting agencies, who worked with doctors, lawyers and emergency services personnel in submitting false claims.
The RAF, a government fund designed to help people injured in accidents, is funded by motorists and other road users through a fuel levy.
In August last year, the fund initiated an audit to investigate claims of fraud, corruption, inadequate financial control systems and poor corporate governance. It has suffered from internal and external corruption.
In 2000, the Transport Department reported that in 143 cases probed, 56% of the amounts due to accident victims was kept by unscrupulous lawyers.
That same year, an operating loss of R771-million brought the fund’s total deficit to R9,2-billion.
Transport Minister Dullah Omar was quoted at the weekend as saying about 25% of annual claims from the RAF, valued at R300-million, were fraudulent. – Sapa