Embattled RAF has paid out R5m so far this year for fees to sue itself
THE embattled Road Accident Fund has forked out millions of rands to its lawyers to issue thousands of summonses against itself.
Over 2 000 summonses, which have cost the cash-strapped fund an estimated R5-million in legal fees so far, were drawn up by its panel of attorneys in the names of direct claimants whose cases had taken too long to finalise and which were days away from prescribing.
However, the claimants were unaware that the summonses were being issued in their name.
In April, the DA said the practice was unethical and prejudicial to claimants, and laid fraud charges against the RAF for essentially suing themselves.
The fund said at the time the practice was not widespread.
However, a leaked audit report sent to RAF board members in June indicates that between 2013 and 2015, five RAF offices issued 2 098 summonses.
An assessment of 1 710 of these found:
Claimants were not informed of the summons issued in their names;
The average cost of summons was R2 829.43 – a total of about R5-million in legal costs for the fund over a three-year period;
Summons were issued, on average 27 days before the matters prescribed; and
The RAF’s legal division “advised that the fund cannot issue summons against itself”.
RAF chief executive officer Eugene Watson has confirmed the fund had conducted an audit, but its contents were confidential.
He could not confirm the authenticity of the audit report without seeing it.