After years of acknowledging debts owed to medical experts and repeatedly asking them to resubmit invoices, the Road Accident Fund attempted to invoke prescription against some of the claims it had failed to pay.
According to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), the disputed debts emerged from a system that left experts waiting years for payment, some nearly losing their practices, others reportedly losing their homes and livelihoods, and many becoming increasingly reluctant to work for the RAF.
The committee’s latest findings point to procurement failures, flawed contracts, and payment systems that failed to account for millions of rand owed to experts. Evidence before SCOPA also included allegations that RAF offices contained “thousands of invoices strewn on office floors”.
The findings form part of SCOPA’s ongoing inquiry into governance failures and operational shortcomings at the RAF. Since concluding its public hearings earlier this year, the committee has been working through the report section by section. Previous deliberations have focused on the RAF’s change in accounting policy, the RAF 1 Form, and matters relating to Sunshine Hospital, including unpaid claims litigation and allegations of collusion involving RAF staff.
The section dealing with medico-legal service providers and the RAF’s panel of medical experts was considered on 3 June.
The report remains in draft form and will be circulated to affected parties for comment before being finalised and tabled in the National Assembly.
Why medical experts matter
Medical experts play a central role in the RAF claims process.
Doctors, occupational therapists, psychologists, and other specialists assess claimants, quantify injuries and estimate losses, such as future medical expenses and loss of earnings. Their reports help to determine whether claims are valid and assist in calculating appropriate compensation.
Historically, the RAF has appointed its own experts to assess and defend claims. Claimants may also obtain reports from their own experts, often through attorneys acting on their behalf. When matters proceed to litigation, experts may be called upon to testify in court in support of their findings.
Without expert evidence, the RAF’s ability to assess, defend, and litigate claims is significantly weakened.
During the committee’s deliberations last week, SCOPA chairperson Songezo Zibi recounted a recent conversation with a Pretoria High Court judge who urged committee members to spend time observing RAF matters in court.
The judge reportedly complained that RAF cases frequently proceed without anyone effectively defending the Fund’s interests or presenting expert evidence, leaving courts to decide matters on the evidence before them and contributing to claims being paid that might otherwise have been challenged.
Recalling the conversation, Zibi said the judge told him: “Please, your committee must just come and sit there in any of the courts one day and listen. By lunch time, we will all be screaming and pulling our hair out because of the kind of cases that sit there.”
A procurement system that never seemed settled
The committee’s primary witness on expert procurement was Cecilia Minnie, owner of MMB Made Easy, a business that processes accounts on behalf of more than 100 medico-legal experts. Her company has worked with RAF experts since 2007.
According to Minnie, the RAF relied on panels of medico-legal experts appointed through formal procurement processes and instructed through panel attorneys.
In 2015, the RAF established a national panel of 82 experts, including just two orthopaedic surgeons. Minnie told the committee the panel was too small to meet the Fund’s needs, forcing the RAF regularly to use experts outside the panel, some of whom charged rates above the RAF tariff.
When the panel expired in May 2018, no replacement was immediately put in place. Instead, attorneys were allowed to appoint experts on the RAF’s behalf, subject to approval by the Fund. The arrangement remained in place for about three-and-a-half years.
Part of the confusion centred on a 2018 Request for Information (RFI), which SCOPA found appears to have been treated as a procurement mechanism despite not being a formal tender process.
Former RAF procurement executive John Modise provided further insight into the difficulties that followed. He told the committee that the proposed panel was expected to cost more than R1 billion a year, and delays emerged when questions arose over who had the authority to sign service-level agreements with experts.
According to Modise, the RAF’s board had authorised only the acting chief executive to sign the contracts, creating a bottleneck that left some experts unwilling to do RAF work without signed agreements in place.
He also described a dispute with then acting chief executive Collins Letsoalo over whether those signing powers could be delegated further, an incident Modise later linked to what he termed his “retaliatory suspension”.
By the time a new panel was approved in 2022, experts were reportedly receiving contracts containing blank sections, outdated tariffs, references to former RAF employees, and commencement dates that predated the agreements by several years.
SCOPA concluded that the RAF had failed properly to assess its expert requirements, plan for its ongoing needs, and ensure that its procurement and contracting processes were legally sound.
Years of unpaid invoices
The consequences extended well beyond procurement.
During the committee’s deliberations, Zibi recounted a recent conversation with a medico-legal practitioner who had moved his practice from KwaZulu-Natal to Pretoria. According to Zibi, the practitioner described accepting RAF work as “the biggest mistake of his life” because of the difficulties involved in obtaining payment.
The practitioner reportedly told Zibi that administrative failures, lost files, and payment delays had nearly forced him to close his practice.
The experience echoed evidence presented by Minnie, who told the committee that more than 200 experts lodged a formal complaint with the RAF in November 2018 over unpaid invoices and uncertainty about payment procedures.
Matters worsened after the RAF terminated its panel attorney system in June 2020. Experts who had previously worked through panel attorneys were instructed to engage directly with the RAF, but no effective system was put in place to manage the transition.
Experts struggled to identify claims handlers, obtain information needed to prepare reports, establish whether work had been properly authorised, and recover payment for work already completed.
According to Minnie, experts were repeatedly asked to resubmit invoices as the RAF attempted to reconcile outstanding debts, but there was no reliable system for tracking submissions. She testified that RAF offices appeared to contain “thousands of invoices strewn on office floors”.
The committee found that weaknesses in the RAF’s invoice-processing systems contributed directly to long-standing payment disputes.
From promises to prescription
The committee heard that RAF officials repeatedly acknowledged that money was owed to experts and held a series of meetings aimed at resolving the backlog.
According to Minnie’s evidence, the issue came to a head after the RAF terminated its panel attorney system in June 2020, leaving many experts uncertain about how outstanding invoices would be paid.
At a meeting that month, Letsoalo reportedly acknowledged the debt and undertook to engage National Treasury on a mechanism for paying experts directly. Experts were told that outstanding claims would be reconciled and payment systems would be improved.
Over the following months, experts were repeatedly asked to resubmit invoices and supporting documents so that the RAF could verify outstanding amounts. According to Minnie, many complied with multiple requests and supplied the same information more than once.
The committee heard that these engagements created the impression that the RAF accepted responsibility for the debt and was working towards a solution.
In July 2021, however, experts were informed that older invoices may have prescribed.
SCOPA took issue with that approach. The committee found that the RAF had acted disingenuously where experts could show that invoices had previously been submitted and concluded that they should not be prejudiced by the Fund’s own failures in record-keeping, invoice tracking, and payment administration.
For SCOPA, the concern was not only whether the debts had prescribed, but whether it was reasonable for the RAF to rely on prescription after repeatedly acknowledging the debt and requesting invoices for reconciliation.
Millions still outstanding
Many of the disputes remain unresolved.
According to Minnie’s evidence, 35 experts whose accounts are managed by her business are still owed R41.29 million, excluding interest.
A broader group of 47 experts is allegedly owed more than R120.75m, with some claims dating back to 2014.
The committee also received evidence that the estate of a deceased orthopaedic surgeon is owed more than R14.5m.
Experts told SCOPA they often have no way of knowing whether invoices are awaiting payment, have been rejected, have prescribed, or were paid to attorneys. Some continue to be denied payment because the RAF disputes whether panel attorneys had authority to instruct them, despite relying on their reports in defending claims.
Evidence before the committee also suggested that some experts lost their homes and livelihoods because of the prolonged disputes, while others stopped doing RAF work altogether.
When claimants get caught in the middle
Although claimant attorneys fall outside the primary scope of this section of the inquiry, the committee also considered allegations that some attorneys failed to pay experts despite receiving money from the RAF.
SCOPA noted that either claims remain unresolved or settlement funds have been paid but have not reached claimants and service providers. In both cases, claimants are affected.
The committee further found that poor communication between the RAF, attorneys, experts, and claimants creates opportunities for duplicate payments and the possible misappropriation of funds.
SCOPA’s findings
SCOPA found deficiencies in procurement, contracting, invoice processing, and payment systems.
The committee concluded that the RAF failed properly to plan for its expert requirements, failed to ensure that contracts were legally sound, and failed to pay valid invoices within the timeframes required by the Public Finance Management Act.
It also found that the termination of the panel attorney system was poorly managed, and expert reports were sometimes commissioned but never used because the RAF failed properly to defend matters in court.
More broadly, the committee concluded that weaknesses in procurement, governance, and financial administration had consequences beyond unpaid invoices, affecting experts, claimants, and the RAF’s ability to fulfil its mandate.
Click here to read the full report.
