Simon Nare
Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has raised concerns about the funding model of the Road Accident Fund and how it will eventually run the entity aground if another version is not found.
The committee met virtually on Friday to consider the first draft report following an oversight enquiry conducted between October 2025 and February 2026.
This was followed by a public inquisition and sworn testimony with non-appearance of key witness and former chief executive officer Collins Letsoalo, who defied summons to appear.
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RAF is funded through a petrol levy which amounts to R4 billion per month, collected by the South African Revenue Service. The entity also receives minor income from ad hoc government grants and interests from investments.
Committee chairman Songezo Sibi said the financial challenges of the entity as a result of financial and operational failures because of the existing funding model could explain why RAF delayed payment of claims and service providers as it could be left with no money to function.
“It is clear when you look at the actions of the sheriff that until and unless the Road Accident Fund funding problem is resolved, they are always going to struggle, it is clear.
“And I am wondering if these kinds of issues are not partly as a result of RAF trying to prevent money leaving the door because they are going to become insolvent in the middle of the month and not able to meet their short-term obligation and therefore, they have to keep delaying claims on one end, medical bills on the other, the lawyers, etcetera,” said Zibi.
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Another concern for Zibi was the fact that the entity had spent so much on litigation, saying that the committee might have to ask RAF how much has been spent on court judgments that had gone against the entity.
He emphasised that the committee asks for a financial report from Auditor-General Advocate Tsakani Maluleke; it must be a detailed, simplified one that spells out how much was outstanding in claims, to claimants, to service providers, and other parties, to give the committee the scale of the problem.
Zibi told the committee that he had a briefing with Transport Minister Barbara Creecy recently, who told him that RAF was trying to accelerate payment of claims and last month had the largest number of payments, which he said was good news.
“But I think the funding issue remains live, it’s a big one, and it cannot be taken lightly even amongst all the problems,” he said.
Another concern from some committee members was that there seemed to have been no movement in holding Letsoalo to account despite several legal attempts to get him to come before the committee, which he blatantly defied.
There was no feedback given to the committee from the legal team after the committee recommended that he face criminal charges following his undertaking to appear in November 2025, but he was a no-show.
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Letsoalo was scheduled to appear for two days today to account for his role in the entity’s financial troubles during his tenure. Amongst other allegations, Letsoalo forced RAF to buy him an armored BMW costing R4 million as well as more bodyguards for him and his wife, as he claimed there was a threat to his life and family.
During the virtual meeting on Friday, the committee zoomed mainly on the relationship between RAF and Sunshine Hospital after several submissions during the enquiry relating to the institution.
These included submission by the hospital that RAF owed it more than R300 million as of July 2025, arising from medical bills and court judgements the hospital won in court.
Former RAF employees had submitted unfair dismissals in respect of their conduct, that they colluded with the hospital in defrauding the entity.
Zibi registered concerns that RAF had not been able to prove the allegations against the employees anywhere else, yet it dismissed them.
“It is worrying that every time they are asked to prove these allegations, they can’t, but they have been suspending and putting employees through disciplinary processes for the same thing, where in court they simply can’t sustain these allegations, yet they are spending money in the process,” he said.
The report pointed out that the Sunshine Hospital matter involved hundreds of millions of rands and that adverse court orders were increasingly being granted against the RAF, thereby resulting in the accumulation of interest and legal costs.
As such, the Committee was particularly concerned as to the reasons for the alleged debt, and whether the non-payment was legally defensible, and the litany of litigations was costly.
