The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has stirred a hornet’s nest with its latest attempt to resuscitate the draft Bill that will change the face of how road accident victims will receive their claims.
Law experts have slammed the Road Accident Fund Amendment Bill 2002, saying it is in defiance and contempt of the soon to be released report by Judge Kathleen Satchwell’s commission.
Three years ago the commission was appointed to investigate the levels of corruption and syndicates operating in the fund. Judge Satchwell has condemned the draft Bill, saying it has significant implications for the administrative infrastructure of the fund and that the proposals are ”devoid of any appreciation of the current administrative incapacity within the fund”.
She says the Bill addressed 12 issues that emerge as ”ad hoc” amendments and succeeds in avoiding, delaying or reducing expenditure on road accident compensation by the fund’s administrative authority. ”The entire package appears to be one response to a financial crisis on the part of the administrative authority, the RAF.”
She says the regional fund’s offices have been compromised. ”Furthermore, the almost complete lack of management control is so prevalent and the level of fraud and corruption so high that a complete overhaul of the fund’s systems, procedures and staff is required to urgently address all findings of this investigation.”
Relations between the fund and attorneys disintegrated at the fund’s symposium last month when attorneys walked out on the second day.
The Law Society of South Africa and other legal bodies said it was clear that the conference was ”deliberately planned to ensure an unprecedented attack and defamation of the attorney’s profession”. One of the proposals that attorneys oppose is the direct payment system to clients in which compensation will be paid in instalments as opposed to being paid in a lump sum to attorneys.
Judge Satchwell says: ”The RAF has yet to develop the capacity, expertise and experience in a limited way before embarking on such ambitious restructuring.”