‘Insane’ amount of money being spent on RAF legal fees, Zibi says

Simon Nare

Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) chairperson Songezo Zibi again on Tuesday lambasted the Road Accident Fund’s (RAF) litigation and legal costs, saying they were disproportionately high relative to compensation, and contributed to the fund’s massive court backlogs.

There had to be a way to reduce the “insane” amount of money being spent on lawyers representing accident victims, he said, while addressing MPs and the Legal Practice Council during SCOPA’s probe into the fund.

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Zibi said the amount of money being paid to law firms had stirred so much anger from the public that the fund could not be allowed to carry on in its current form, particularly since it had hundreds of thousands of cases outstanding.

He said evidence presented to SCOPA thus far suggested there were law firms that were