Fund flushes out crooked lawyers
ALEXANDRA - The Road Accident Fund will tighten the screws to flush-out unscrupulous lawyers who take advantage of poor and uninformed accident victims to enrich themselves.
The Road Accident Fund will be tightening the screws to flush out unscrupulous lawyers who take advantage of poor and uninformed accident victims to enrich themselves.
In closing loopholes, fund spokesperson Linda Rulashe said they would implement the impending Road Accident Benefit Scheme (Rabs) which will replace the current fault-based system which certain crooked lawyers have been able to take advantage of, often resulting in long and costly litigation.
Rulashe was responding to questions from Alex News about issues raised by community members during the fund’s roadshow in Alexandra. Most raised concerns about the number of claimants who walked away from the fund dejected after they had reported negligent lawyers who had allowed their claims to lapse.
Rulashe said the Department of Transport had designed a simple and straightforward claiming process that would stop crooked lawyers jumping into the fray to make claims on behalf of road accident victims.
Rabs would replace the current system where the fund needs to first confirm who was at fault, which often resulted in long and costly litigation, Rulashe said. In the new system, the element of fault would not be considered on the part of the claimant or other persons involved in the road accident.
She said the focus of the fund would essentially be how it could immediately assist the claimants, as opposed to labouring to find who was at fault first. The benefits provided by the scheme would also be defined upfront and paid in a structured manner.
This would create transparency and further simplify and speed up the process, Rulashe said.
“A no-fault scheme will create a new era of socio-economic balance and also remove the unintended negative consequences and burden on the families of the wrongdoer,” she said.
Rabs would be a more reasonable, affordable, equitable and sustainable system of providing benefits to victims of road accidents. Access to benefits would be expanded to ensure victims receive rehabilitation and benefits much earlier than under the current system.
The fund encourages people to claim directly with it, as it was the most cost-effective way of processing a claim and improves relations between the fund and the claimant. Crash victims could also expect the highest standard of care when dealing with the fund directly, Rulashe added.
