The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has been operating under sustained financial distress for more than three decades, with liabilities consistently exceeding assets since as far back as 1981, former board members told parliament this week.
Appearing before parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) in Cape Town on Wednesday, former RAF board members Nomonde Buyisiwe Mabuya (former deputy chair), Thembelihle Nkosazana Msibi (former deputy chair and chair) and Zanele Lorraine Francois said the fund’s current crisis was the result of long-standing structural, governance and legislative failures that predated their tenure.
Their submissions are part of Scopa’s inquiry into the governance, financial management and operational failures at the RAF. While the committee formally adopted the terms of reference for the inquiry in July, covering the 2020/21 to 2024/25 financial years, it has made clear that earlier decisions and omissions that contributed to the fund’s collapse will also be scrutinised.
In an affidavit presented to Scopa, the former board members, whose term lasted from 2019 until the board was dissolved in July 2025, said the board that preceded theirs was also dissolved due to concerns about financial sustainability. However, they argued that no decisive effort was ever made to address the root causes of the crisis, including the failure to amend the outdated RAF Act.
“When the turnaround board was appointed in 2019, the minister of transport at the time, Fikile Mbalula, clearly set out the expectations and context in the 2020/21 annual report,” the affidavit states.
It quotes Mbalula as saying: “When I appointed the board towards the end of the 2019/20 financial year, they inherited a financially unsustainable fund with a highly ineffective operating model. The fund had been technically insolvent since 1981.”
The fund was operating under conditions of sustained financial distress for the past 30 years, with liabilities consistently exceeding assets and without a coherent long-term turnaround strategy
— Affidavit
According to the affidavit, outstanding claims increased year-on-year due to higher claim registrations and slow settlement processes. The RAF’s operating model was described as “highly litigious”, with a significant portion of revenue spent on administrative and legal costs rather than being paid to claimants. At the same time, claims liabilities and unpaid amounts continued to escalate.
The former board members also pointed to the then finance minister Tito Mboweni’s February 26 2020 budget speech, in which he announced a 25c per litre increase in the fuel levy to adjust for inflation, with 16c allocated to the general fuel levy and 9c to the RAF levy.
Despite this increase, Mboweni warned that RAF liabilities were forecast to exceed R600bn by the 2022/23 financial year, and that urgent measures were needed to reduce the risk to the fiscus and ensure a more equitable sharing of costs.
“Despite these inherited constraints, the board achieved measurable improvements in governance and oversight,” the former board members told Scopa.
“During our tenure, we strengthened governance structures, enhanced the effectiveness of board committees and implemented actions aimed at addressing the auditor-general’s findings.”
Scopa heard that when the 2019 board assumed office, the RAF was already facing entrenched structural, financial and governance challenges. These included weak internal controls, a poor organisational culture marked by fraud, waste and abuse, instability at executive management level, and a significant litigation backlog.
“The fund was operating under conditions of sustained financial distress for the past 30 years, with liabilities consistently exceeding assets and without a coherent long-term turnaround strategy,” the affidavit reads.
The former board members raised concerns about their relationship with the current political leadership, saying that since transport minister Barbara Creecy’s appointment in July 2024 under the government of national unity, she did not meet the board to outline expectations or strategic direction, unlike her predecessors.
They said their first interaction with the ministry was during what they described as a “hostile” annual general meeting on September 25 2024, where the deputy minister Mkhuleko Hlengwa allegedly instructed the board, contrary to Section 15 of the RAF Act, to withdraw litigation against the auditor-general.
The former board maintained that it consistently exercised its statutory oversight powers, aligned with government priorities, and upheld its fiduciary duties.
“Through structured turnaround plans, performance agreements and adherence to government mandates, the board successfully stabilised the RAF’s operational and financial position, strengthened internal controls and governance processes, and improved service delivery to accident victims and their families,” they said.
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