SCOPA to begin enquiry into maladministration and misuse of public funds at Road Accident Fund

The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) will, on Tuesday morning, begin its oversight enquiry into the evidence of, and allegations of maladministration, financial impropriety, and the misuse of public funds at the Road Accident Fund (RAF).

The enquiry will begin with the RAF and the Department of Transport in the afternoon. On Wednesday, the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer, the Office of the Accountant General and the Auditor-General of South Africa will appear before the committee.

The Special Investigating Unit is expected to appear on Friday.

Among SCOPA’s key concerns are:

• Failure to perform adequate background checks on senior management and executive appointments who nonetheless have access to and manage significant sums of public funds, despite having a deeply concerning employment and disciplinary history involving allegations of reckless financial management decisions.
• Subsequent refusal by the RAF to disclose to the committee where such funds are kept and for what purpose.
• Failure to appoint critical officials such as a Chief Claims Officer, Head of Claims Operations, Head of Legal, Chief Corporate Support Officer, Head of People Management etc, for an unacceptably long time while decisions with a significant financial impact on the RAF are being taken, alternatively, not being taken when they should.
• Apparent failures of governance with a direct impact on the rule of law, the authority and powers of Parliament, as well as Chapter 9 institutions tasked with performing oversight on behalf of the South African people.
• Numerous whistleblower accounts relating to supply chain irregularities involving more than R1 billion, while internal management controls appear not to be applied.

The Oversight Enquiry is a legally mandated process to allow Parliament to conduct its oversight in a structured manner, but it is neither a judicial nor a quasi-judicial process, and is not adversarial in nature.

According to the RAF Terms of Reference: “The Oversight Enquiry is an inquisitorial process, informed and underpinned by Parliament’s oversight mandate. The SCOPA does not seek to usurp the functions of any other organ of state or law enforcement agency.

“The SCOPA, therefore, acknowledges that parallel investigations or enquiries outside (and even inside) of Parliament may be taking place. This, however, cannot absolve the SCOPA from carrying out its oversight functions.”

SCOPA Chairperson Songezo Zibi said that they have been preparing the inquiry for the last three months. Zibi said that since October last year, they have asked for accurate and truthful information from the RAF, and that the information received has either been unreliable or not forthcoming at all.

“We will begin the enquiry, which will be led by the (committee) members themselves. I will chair the sessions, and it will go on for several weeks until the middle of November.

“We will do our best to complete our report either by the end of November or the beginning of December so we can table it before the National Assembly with recommendations, which will then form part of our oversight work.”

Zibi thanked the public and other stakeholders for their submissions after SCOPA put out a call. He said they received just under 100 submissions, with some of them running into hundreds of pages.

“A lot of them we very useful and they got us in touch with several people, inside and outside of the RAF, that helped us determine how we are going to conduct the enquiry.”

“We have received a lot of allegations that have caused us to do this inquiry, so we are going to probe all of that,” Zibi said.

“All of this will be conducted in public, and at the end of each day, we will upload documents so that members of the public can see for themselves.”

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za