The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) has resolved to request the Secretary to Parliament to lay criminal charges against former Road Accident Fund (RAF) chief executive officer Collins Letsoalo after he repeatedly failed to appear before an oversight inquiry examining his role in the agency’s financial management.

The decision follows Letsoalo’s failure to comply with a summons issued in November 2025 requiring him to testify before Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA).

Despite an undertaking through his legal representatives, he did not attend the hearings.

SCOPA was subsequently forced to conclude its inquiry without hearing testimony from Letsoalo, whom the committee regarded as a key witness.

As a result, he was not afforded an opportunity to respond to allegations made against him by current and former RAF employees who appeared before the committee.

In a statement on Wednesday, SCOPA said it had previously resolved to pursue criminal charges but had sought the concurrence of National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza before proceeding.

“The Speaker has now responded to the committee, indicating that her concurrence is not required in terms of the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act (PPIPPLA),” the committee said.

“She further advised that should the committee still wish to proceed with laying criminal charges, it should request the Secretary to Parliament to lay the charge on its behalf.”

Following the Speaker’s response, the committee again voted on the matter, with eight members supporting the move and three opposing it.

SCOPA said Section 17(1) of the PPIPPLA provides that a person who has been duly summoned under Section 14 and fails, without sufficient cause, to attend at the specified time and place commits an offence and may be liable to a fine, imprisonment of up to 12 months, or both.

Committee chairperson Songezo Zibi is expected to formally communicate the committee’s decision to the Secretary to Parliament and request that criminal charges be instituted.

Letsoalo was scheduled to appear before SCOPA over two days in late November 2025.

The committee said multiple attempts were made to secure his attendance, including efforts by the committee secretary and the service of summonses at his residence and electronically, but he failed to appear.

In an interview with the SABC shortly afterwards, Letsoalo said he would not appear before SCOPA, describing the proceedings as a “kangaroo court”.

Letsoalo was placed on precautionary suspension in May 2025 amid scrutiny over a R79 million office lease and other contracts flagged by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), which is investigating allegations of corruption and maladministration at the RAF.

He has denied wrongdoing and previously described aspects of the SIU investigation as a “fishing expedition”.

His contract as RAF chief executive expired in August 2025 and was not renewed.

Among the allegations heard by the committee were claims that Letsoalo sought an armoured BMW valued at more than R4 million and increased his security detail from three to nine bodyguards without a formal threat assessment, significantly raising security costs.

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The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has heard how the Road Accident Fund (RAF) spent millions of rands on external lawyers to handle labour disputes involving suspended employees, an approach MPs said contributed to wasteful expenditure.

Former RAF senior human resources manager Motlhoding Letsoalo testified that the fund paid “exorbitant fees” to private attorneys for disciplinary matters that could have been handled internally at no cost.

The committee was told that over the past five years, the RAF spent R100 million or more on legal fees arising from what witnesses described as reckless suspensions and labour disputes.

Letsoalo, the suspended head of the CEO’s office, Mpho Manyasha, and suspended chief governance officer Mampe Kumalo appeared before Scopa as the inquiry entered its seventh week.

Letsoalo, who clarified that he has no relation to former CEO Collins Letsoalo, told MPs that senior managers simply refused to participate in disciplinary processes. 

He recounted how 200 employees were suspended on the instruction of then-CEO Collins Letsoalo for failing to process claims within the prescribed 180 days — even though a court order had halted progress on those cases.

His office protested the suspensions, but he said, “we were told that if you don’t do it, then you must go.”

Scopa also heard that previous witnesses testified managers were instructed to suspend employees first and “find the reasons later”. 

An internal email read into the record directed line managers to identify five individuals in each regional office to be suspended without charges.

Some employees were suspended despite managers’ warning there was no evidence of wrongdoing, MPs heard.

Letsoalo said the normal procedure was to suspend employees only when allegations existed and an investigation was underway. 

Charges should then follow if prima facie evidence emerged. 

He conceded that staff had been charged against the advice of line managers and that RAF records would show more suspensions during the former CEO’s tenure than at any other time.

“Many regional managers complained because when you suspend claims administrators you incapacitate the region, causing delays in processing claims,” he said. 

Managers asked for sanctions short of suspension so staff could continue working, but these requests were rejected.

Letsoalo said regional managers were increasingly frustrated as suspensions dragged on, some dating back to 2021. 

Attempts to involve unions and seek a meeting with the former CEO failed, with the CEO insisting he would not “negotiate discipline”.

Scopa chairperson Songezo Zibi questioned why RAF relied on external lawyers for internal disciplinary matters, noting this was traditionally the responsibility of line managers. 

He said the fund appeared not to follow proper procedures when suspending employees and highlighted that, in most organisations, lawyers are only brought in when cases escalate to the Labour Court or CCMA.

“We were told that at the RAF, for several reasons — even for internal processes — counsel would be appointed. If RAF handled its own matters where possible, the fund would save money that could be redirected to hiring state attorneys or other critical needs,” Zibi said.

Letsoalo replied that when he joined RAF in 2019, he found a long-standing practice of using several panels of private lawyers, including for labour disputes. 

These panels have since been disbanded and replaced with state attorneys.

“You are quite right. A lot of money went into those cases. Money that could have been used elsewhere. But that’s how the system was,” he said.

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The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) has heard how the Road Accident Fund (RAF) wilfully broke the law and issued unlawful management directives that would lead to litigation, which the entity often lost, and added to wasteful expenditure.

The president of the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA), Nkosana Francois Mavundlela, led the attack against the RAF on Tuesday, when he and the society’s senior members appeared at SCOPA’s enquiry into procurement and governance affairs at the entity.

The RAF enquiry is now in its second month as the parliamentary committee probes maladministration and possible fraud, which have brought the entity to the brink of collapse.

Mavundlela told the committee that the RAF deliberately neglected to pay settlements, even in contempt of court findings, and offered no financial relief for claimants, leaving them destitute.

“The current administration of the RAF failed to recognise and respect the separation of powers as defined in the Constitution and have attempted to usurp to themselves the role of parliament by issuing management directives in which they seek to change the existing law,” said Mavundlela.

He submitted that such brazen disregard of the law was an example of ill-advised policy decisions, which led to wasteful expenditure in the form of adverse cost orders and interest on unsatisfied judgments.

LSSA committee member Lindy Langer told the committee that simply put, RAF management was trying to change legislation without following the parliamentary process.

Langer said the society confronted the board and indicated to the organisation that they had the powers to draft the management directives and then enforce them. This, she said, was further confirmed by former chief executive officer Collins Letsoalo in their engagements with him.

“In the discussions that we have entered into with RAF, the previous CEO would just stipulate that they had this function which is given to them in terms of the powers of the board. So, we do not agree with that.

“We strongly disagree with that, because any member of a board or any functionary of an organisation should ultimately see to it that the powers and functions fall within the ambit of the powers that are provided in terms of the legislation regulated in terms of the constitution, to the benefit of the victim,” she said.

Langer said as far as the society was concerned, it was clear that any notices, any memorandum, any board decisions that had been taken or provided to Letsoalo in making management directives and statements that were in violation of the RAF regulations should not have been tolerated.

“This also created a tremendous wasted expenditure because every single notice, every single announcement is being litigated in court,” she said, adding that the litigation had been going on for some time.

Mavundlela placed the blame for the current state of the RAF squarely on Letsoalo and the board.  

“The board notices and everything else in their generation would have been led by both the board and the CEO. Our understanding is that the entire atmosphere and the board and everyone else surrounding the situation may not have comprehended the way they ought to have comprehended,” he said.

Mavundlela also spoke out against myriad enrolled cases, which he said was a result of the failure by RAF to determine the merits of the cases. This led to claims being taken to court that could have been resolved by the entity itself.

He said that the RAF, according to existing regulations, had the right to simply investigate some of the cases and determine the claim. Failure to do that had compelled claimants to instruct their lawyers to head to court.

Some of the claims have been set down for 2031 or 2032 for the claims to be decided, while others are default judgments.

“The current statistics are disheartening, to say the least, when you are sitting with the default judgments. Default judgments are judgments given in the absence of the other party. It’s unopposed matters. When you are sitting with dates of 2031, 2032, the effect of it is that that member of the public —  in our view as the law society — is denied access to justice. They are going to sit out five years for the matter to be determined, unopposed. That’s what it actually means,” he said.

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The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has heard that the new Road Accident Fund (RAF) system is vulnerable to inflated and potentially fraudulent claims, driving up the total claim bill, even for cases that have been partially processed or finalised.

The committee continued hearing evidence in its enquiry into the entity’s procurement and governance affairs on Wednesday, with former Chief Financial Officer Victor Songelwa and former Senior Manager of the Actuarial and Reinsurance Unit, Itayi Walter Charakupa, in the hot seat.

Songelwa and Charakupa, both dismissed, concurred in their testimonies and in affidavits submitted to the committee that the new system, introduced with the arrival of since suspended CEO Collins Letsoalo, left the fund vulnerable to defrauding claimants after dismantling the internal panel of lawyers, who in the previous system would defend claims.

As a result, the fund ended up paying more money for fewer claims. The number of finalised claims had declined, resulting in claimants waiting longer to be paid out.

This is despite the RAF receiving billions from the South African Revenue Service, which flows from the fuel levy.

Songelwa said this was not enough to keep the entity afloat, as it was spending more on claims every month than money streaming in.

Both former managers believe that a new funding model has to be found, fast.

The rot, the former managers concurred, started when the entity changed its accounting policy, which resulted in litigation and expenditure. This also pushed the accumulated deficit well into the billions, with ActionSA saying earlier this month that according to its calculations, the entity had unrecorded liabilities of over R500 billion, and was “completely insolvent”. This amount was not disputed during Wednesday’s sitting.

The former managers said that no costing or visibility study was done for the new model and that Songelwa, despite being CFO, was excluded in the adoption of the new model.

“Would I be wrong to say the current model and legislation of RAF is a no hope, given the extent of the obligation of the Road Accident Fund in terms of the benefit that it must pay out versus the funding model?” asked Scopa chairperson, Songezo Zibi.

“I mean, those four hundred and some odd thousand (claims) even if RAF had to hire some 2 000 people to move them, there would actually be no money available for them,” he said.

Songwela agreed, saying that when he was presenting an annual report in 2019 in parliament, he raised the matter of the funding model being unsustainable.

“Money that we get on a monthly basis is not enough to service the claims that we have to pay out. In other words, when you settle your claim, the claims that you settle are always more that the money coming in. That is not sustainable at all. The law must change soonest,” he said.

Songelwa questioned the functionality, competency, diversity and knowledge of the board and pointed out that it was not playing its role as it should to ensure efficiency at the entity.

He said at one stage the RAF operated for months without a chartered accountant, yet it had to deal with complex matters that required the competency of one.

Songelwa spoke of the entity being ruled by fear and intimidation, where employees were not given room to be innovative.  

“The environment in my observation was toxic. There was fear, so people that are fearful will not be able to express themselves. They will just do the little that they can and not go beyond,” he said.

Charakupa said that management should have put in place measures to reduce the average value of personal claims, but instead it experienced the flow of inflated, undefended settlements.

He said his department kept sounding warnings that the value of personal claims kept increasing, but they were pressurized by management not to paint a “negative picture” in their analysis reports.

The oversight enquiry was undertaken by the parliamentary committee after allegations of maladministration.  

The committee has, since it started its hearing, been trying to secure the appearance of Letsoalo, but he insists Scopa does not have to authority for oversight, which he said is the purvey of the Portfolio Committee on Transport.

Letsoalo was suspended in June with immediate effect for financial mismanagement and possible corruption after the Special Investigating Unit probed the allegations. His contract came to an end in August 2025.

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The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has questioned the business viability of a private hospital that relies heavily on the Road Accident Fund (RAF) for its survival, and likened its operations to “looting” of the entity.

MPs on Tuesday grilled Sunshine Hospital chief executive officer Ken Ford during the watchdog’s ongoing enquiry into the financial matters of the RAF, focusing on its procurement and governance processes.

The committee heard how the hospital was forced to close its doors after the RAF failed to settle R300 million debt, which has to date accumulated R21 million in interest.

Ford, facing a barrage of questions from MPs about his relationship with the RAF, insisted that the hospital catered for patients other than accident victims whose medical expenses were paid by the RAF.

However, Ford could not answer why, if the hospital was not reliant on RAF, it had to close its doors because of the non-payment by RAF.

He also could not answer why state hospitals preferred to refer accident victims to his hospital.

Ford said the hospital did not hire doctors, they were working independently in the facility, and it was charging for services such as occupancy, the bed, medication, theatre time and various equipment that would be utilised on a patient.

He told the committee that the hospital did not have a contract in black and white with the fund but rather a gentleman’s agreement where patients would be referred to the hospital by state hospitals who were unable to render the services required by the accident victims.

Later, he told MPs, the hospital entered into a co-operative agreement with the RAF and the number of patients being referred began to spike. Some would be dropped off at the hospital by ambulances straight from accident scenes.

But MPs expressed concern as it appeared his business relied on the RAF for survival. It appeared his clients were only road accident victims whose medical bills were paid by the fund.

Scopa chairman Songezo Zibi asked Ford to help the committee understand why the hospital could not operate without the RAF.

“Why did the RAF’s inability to pay affect your ability to operate? That is the holy grail question,” said Zibi.

Ford struggled to answer and asked to use an analogy, saying it was a difficult question to answer. He said that accident victims made up the bulk of his clients and inadvertently when their bills were not footed, that affected the operation financially.

Zibi said he understood that he had to shut the doors, but still wanted to know why it was linked to RAF non-payment.

“I can’t answer that question,” responded Ford.

He told the committee how the hospital collapsed due to the RAF non-payment and was auctioned for a paltry R21 million. The company that attempted to buy it failed to honour the pledge, he said.

He said that it could be because the hospital had a reputation that it defrauded the RAF by inflating claims and people or companies did not want to touch it.

He maintained that thorough investigations were conducted after these allegations surfaced, but there was no evidence unearthed to suggest the allegations were true.

Ford said the fund short-paid in hundreds of cases and it never made it clear who it was short-paying — whether it was the doctor or the hospital — and the institution had approached the court to recoup some of the money.

“The financial management of the hospital was tough. The Road Accident Fund, although they paid inconsistently and erratically, for years up to 2020, they did pay. They paid something, so we built up a reserve, we didn’t go out and spend it. We built-up a reserve and then it suddenly stopped.

“And that is what put us in a position of consideration to close the hospital, because while there was a cash flow of, it might have been six months or one month sometimes, because they didn’t pay in any format,” he said.

He told the committee that the hospital with all its equipment was now a white elephant and perhaps the RAF could save itself lots of money by buying it and treating all its clients there.

Zibi asked Ford to submit financial statement in writing for the past decade, which would indicate revenue generated from accident patients and ordinary patients.

The committee undertook the oversight enquiry following allegations of maladministration of the RAF, which led to the suspension of its chief executive officer Collins Letsoalo, who has resisted invitations by the committee to appear as a witness.

The committee sent him a final letter to secure his appearance, but Letsoalo in various letters to Zibi challenged the authority of Scopa to conduct the oversight enquiry.

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