RAF management muzzled employees during investigations, SIU says

The Road Accident Fund (RAF) is littered with administrative challenges, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has said.

The investigative body provided an update to the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Friday regarding its scrutiny of the RAF.

In addition to listing the funds recovered and cases pending litigation, the SIU said that RAF management stalled their efforts at every opportunity.

RAF irregularities

The SIU’s work with the RAF is focused on procurement and tender irregularities, duplicate claims and payments, service provider contracts and fraudulent claims.

From its investigations into the RAF, the SIU has recovered R317 million, flagged 20 instances that require disciplinary referrals and referred 20 further cases for the NPA to pursue.

The SIU listed six unique investigations into the RAF that will be subject to civil litigation or special tribunal action.

The rand value of the irregularities subject to the six SIU investigations is R397.2 million.

The bulk of that figure comes from widespread irregularities in a project initially promoted to clear the RAF’s payment backlog.

Among the other five are a R12 million cleaning contract, a R53 million fleet contract and a five-year R17 million office building contract.

Investigation ‘interference’

The SIU highlighted several delays in the investigations based primarily on non-cooperation from the RAF.

Information requested was not accurately relayed, with some requests not being responded to at all.

“There were instances where the SIU had to resort to criminal cases against RAF executives for failure to adhere to a lawful subpoena issued by the SIU,” it said.

The SIU’s methodology allows flagged employees the opportunity to reply to any accusation levelled against them prior to disciplinary processes being followed, but RAF executives micromanaged this procedure.

“The SIU noted with concern a directive issued by the RAF to its employees in respect of the right of reply, wherein employees were directed to forward the SIU’s right of reply to the RAF management, such that responses to the SIU are well coordinated,” the entity stated.

“The directive is thus viewed by the SIU to have a direct compromise on the investigation and may amount to interference,” it elaborated.

No plan B

The SIU said that much of the RAF’s problems stem from the fund having dissolved its panel of attorneys in 2020 without a backup plan.

“The RAF then decided to use the services of state attorneys. However, the process to get the state attorneys’ appearance in court took longer and at this time, the RAF had no representation in court for at least a period of 12 months,” investigators said.

Investigations are continuing, but the SIU highlighted areas of concern that needed to be addressed urgently.

These weaknesses include database accuracy, multiple writs of execution issued for single payments, delays in reconciling the RAF bank account and the RAF leaving itself exposed to litigation.

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