Lawyers fed up with non-paying RAF

AT LEAST 102 claimants who lodged claims with the Road Accident Fund (RAF) and proposed settlements may approach the court if they are not paid within the agreed120 days.

Lawyer JP Rudd of Adams & Adams has written to RAF chief executive Collins Letsoalo demanding immediate action or face the law.

Rudd said in the letter, to which he is still awaiting a response, that all these claims had been quantified in full.

Settlement proposals have furthermore been directed to the RAF claims handlers, some of which date as far back as January 2019.

Rudd said that despite this the RAF had failed and/or refused to settle the matters.

“The taxpayers will now, as a result, be saddled with the costs of these matters proceeding to trial in circumstances in which they could and should have been timeously settled by the RAF,” Rudd said.

He made it clear that this situation was unacceptable and contradicted court papers filed by Letsoalo and promises made by him, indicating an intention to settle matters within 120 days from lodging them.

“The conduct also flies in the face of the RAF’s mandate to compensate victims.”

Rudd added that the RAF had recently said that it did have a surplus of funds.

“It would be a very sad day if this surplus was generated at the expense of victims not receiving the compensation they desperately need and are entitled to,” he said.

In his letter to the RAF, he called on Letsoalo to ensure that these matters were given the urgent attention they deserved and that settlement offers were made forthwith to avoid a waste of legal costs, which the taxpayers would ultimately have to carry.

Rudd said his clients had been more than patient, as some have been waiting for months, if not years, to be paid.

He said that if they had known that they would not be paid within the 120 days, they would have rather opted to go to court from the start and not agreed to settle.

“If they went this route, their cases would have been finalised by now,” he said.

Letsoalo, on several occasions, made it clear, both to the media and in court papers, that to streamline the settlement of claims and subsequent payments to road accident victims, the fund has embarked on a new strategic path.

Central to the strategy was the settlement of claims within 120 days, reducing the average age of old claims and reducing administrative costs – a strategy he said is bearing fruit.

Letsoalo said the RAF spent about R6 billion on legal costs, which could have gone to claimants.

In response to the emails and letter sent to the RAF, it said that its settlement team was inundated with matters and that cases had to wait their turn.