11 November 2002
As part of our ongoing 2002 Red October Campaign for a comprehensive social security system within our country, the South African Communist Party (SACP) has been closely monitoring developments around the Road Accident Fund (RAF). The SACP notes with concern that the Law Society of South Africa continues to insist that lawyers be paid their personal and company fees directly from the Fund when an award is made to a victim.
This is an indication that many lawyers continue to see the Fund as primarily an opportunity for personal accumulation, with the actual victims coming a distant second. It also serves as an indication that many in the legal fraternity may well intend to put up a bitter fight to resist any serious restructuring of the RAF.
The SACP takes this opportunity to warn those who intend to resist serious restructuring of the Fund, for their own private accumulation purposes, that they will face the mobilised anger of many ordinary South Africans.
We say this in the light of the fact that the Road Accident Fund Commission, chaired by Judge Satchwell, estimates that up to 50 percent of the Fund’s expenses go to paying legal, health and other professionals, to the detriment of the actual victims of road accidents. The Commission will be tabling its full Report before the end of the year, and the SACP, along with many other progressive formations, will be engaging actively with the proposals of the Commission.
The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive System of Social Security for SA (the Taylor Committee) has already recommended a major overhaul of the RAF so that this multi-billion entity becomes an effective part of our overall social security net rather than a court-based, litigious process, that makes lottery-style one-off lump sum awards. This is a formula calculated to make lawyers rich, and it is also wide-open to corruption and fraud.
The SACP fully supports the transformation of the RAF into an integral part of the social security system. Road accident victims should receive monthly grants, supervised by appropriate health-care and social workers.
CONTACT
Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Information, Media and Publicity
South African Communist Party
Tel – 011 339 3621; Fax – 011 339 4244; Cell – 083 651 0271
Email – mazibuko@sacp.org.za