By Justin Erasmus
The Personal Injury Plaintiff Lawyers Association is the latest group of attorneys to add its voice to the mounting allegations of mismanagement, incompetence and non-payment at the Road Accident Fund.
Claims are piling up and are not being paid. This situation has become a travesty and attorneys are not the only ones complaining.
The KwaZulu-Natal Private Ambulances Association recently issued a memorandum to the RAF, threatening to withdraw its ambulances belonging to more than 25 emergency medical services if the RAF did not honour the outstanding R10 million.
Medical experts have also been hard hit by the twin forces of RAF non-payments and Covid-19, potentially making their practices financially unsustainable. Occupational therapist Anne Reynolds says the situation has been compounded by the chaos which was caused by the termination of the RAF’s attorneys.
Reports and joint minutes have not been finalised as a result, new appointments have not been made and/or court dates have been delayed.
The real losers will be the victims. With no experienced experts to assess the claims, the likelihood is that claims will be undersettled, with little provision for adequate funds to cover medical costs and aids to ensure an optimal quality of life.
The RAF backlog has been exacerbated by Covid-19. When almost every private sector company was making arrangements for staff to work remotely during the lockdown, no one was able to interact with RAF staff, which means the fund is facing a bigger backlog.
Who is being paid from the roughly R2 000 million paid to the RAF monthly? There is no transparency. Much of the money appears to flow to provincial health departments which, ironically, have put in claims against the RAF.
Claims from Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula earlier this year that the appointment of Collins Letsoalo as RAF chief executive in August would help streamline the organisation have not materialised. Things are worse. Emails are neither answered nor acknowledged, and phone calls are not picked up. Staff in the costs department say they don’t have paper to print on.
Last month, Letsoalo asked for a 180-day reprieve on claim settlement payments. The 180 days does not start from the court settlement day, but rather the day the RAF decides to load the settlement onto its system – often more than six months after the court case.
Last week, Judge E van der Schyff of the High Court in Pretoria said the RAF must “get their house in order” and that there was “lack of transparency” in dealing with claims.
Imagine how hard it must be for victims. Remember, it can take anything from four to six years for a claim to be settled. Many victims may even have been breadwinners. Once the settlement amount is finally settled with a court order, that is where the nightmare begins, trying to get through the RAF’s administrative inefficiencies.
Many clients are poor and do not have the means to survive this long. A waiting period of at least 500 days is average. Further delays in the registration process is unacceptable. The longer the wait before an injured victim can receive rehabilitation and support, the less likely their chances of ever returning to the workplace.
Justin Erasmus is the chairperson of the Personal Injury Plaintiff Lawyers Association.
The Star