NUMSA has made submissions to SCOPA on the Road Accident Fund
12 September 2023
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has made submissions to parliaments Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) on the state of the Road Accident Fund. In our submission we highlighted critical issues which are preventing RAF from being a viable entity. RAF is grossly mismanaged and this continues to negatively affect the claimants. Included in the issues we raises are the following:
The termination of the panel of attorneys: The termination of the panel of the attorneys has created a major problem for the RAF, particularly in relation to appointing experts to conduct assessments on claims so they can know the seriousness of the injuries. Without the attorneys it means that they cannot counter what the plaintiff attorneys are demanding. They must pay what is demanded by the claimants because there are no reports and no attorneys to defend RAF and present to the court an alternative. This has led to an unbearable backlog left to be processed by the few Claims Handlers remaining at the RAF. Each Claims Handler has about 2000 claims on their profiles. They handle about 7 trials a day, which is virtually impossible to manage. The amount of default judgements issued against RAF has immensely increased the organization's expenditure on legal costs, resulting in wasteful expenditure. As a result of the removal of the panel of attorneys, the RAF is unable to meaningfully settle matters in court, and they are unable to pay Claimants on time. This results in a pile of unpaid court orders left unattended. Judge Legodi's judgement, which states that the CEO of RAF, Collins Letsoalo must personally pay for the legal costs in two RAF matters because the fund did not do its work, is supported by the union. It clearly illustrates the challenges brought about by the CEO's lack of foresight. Previously when summons were served the system automatically appointed a panel attorney to defend. However, after termination of panels, default judgements are a daily challenge and Attorneys are now demanding favourable settlements. This resulted in claims for, example, whiplashes, being settled for more than R 6 million when they could have been settled for far less had the matter been defended by a panel attorney.
The understaffed state attorneys do not want to run trials since they are overwhelmed by cases. They settle against assessments made by claim handlers, in favour of unreasonable offers by claimant's attorneys just to close cases. Directives that are contrary to the RAF Act are costly. This results in snowballing wrongly rejected claims which will result in an uncontrollable avalanche of claims in addition to the current backlog. The CEO simply holds the view that he will appeal all the judgements against him simply because he can, despite the low probability of winning.
Instead of correcting the problem, RAF management has chosen to blame hard working employees and suspended some of them for failing to load court orders. The RAF misrepresented facts to SCOPA and stated that there are 200 employees who have been suspended for fraud and corruption. He claims they collude with the attorneys. We have to state that not a single NUMSA member has been suspended or dismissed for fraud and corruption. There are 11 employees who were suspended on other charges and these relate to massive backlogs caused by the covid-19 hard lockdown, and this created massive backlogs. At the same time, during that period the RAF was hacked which resulted in information being lost and workers were unable to do their jobs properly and the CEO is blaming workers for this situation, even though they did not create the problem. These workers have been sitting at home on suspension with full pay, because the RAF is not ready to proceed with disciplinary hearings. In one case, the employee was successfully defended by NUMSA and exonerated, but the RAF is refusing to re-instate the worker.
Integrated Claims Management System: The RAF intends to automate the assessment of claims and replace claims handlers with Artificial Intelligence as part of restructuring. If this is allowed, experienced Claims Handlers who are admitted attorneys and those who have intense knowledge of the RAF Act and the laws of governing Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Claims, will be dismissed. The new system may also result in workers being forced to move to far flung areas if they want to keep their jobs. The RAF management confirmed in section 189A consultations and in the Central Bargaining Council meetings that the new business model and the ICM will see 472 employees being redundant. Majority of those who will be fortunate to keep their jobs will be forced to relocate and if they do not agreed to the relocation, they will be forcefully retrenched. As it stands, the Road Accident Fund is short staffed and the manufactured redundancy will lead to the majority of claims being dormant and not paid on time. The problems which claimants are having will persist. Unbundling of RAF without following proper procedures, such as the outsourcing of the call centre without consultation, clearly shows disregard of organised labour.
Occupational Health and Safety Hazards: Some of the issues that employees of the RAF are faced with, particularly Menlyn employees are Occupational Health and Safety hazards. The following were witnessed by SCOPA on their recent visit to Menlyn Region: Boxes were lying around especially in the passages; employees forced to use dysfunctional toilets especially toilets for persons with disabilities, because of the poor state of other facilities. The sad reality is that our colleagues with disabilities have to use one toilet downstairs and the same toilet is shared with many other people including visitors. This exposes them to further health hazards as sometimes the toilets are occupied and they have to use the toilet as soon as there is a need. This is an inconvenience and poses health risks to them.
The kitchens are in a state of disrepair with cracked tiles and holes. There are protruding sewer pipes at the basement where our members are on full time duty. The Correspondence Room that is responsible for receiving, sorting and distributing thousands of files and documents has poor to no ventilation. There are no windows or means of fresh air circulation. Employees are exposed to dirty files that are full of dust and this exposes them to a risk of contracting a range of respiratory infections. There are unclean offices with dirty and dusty carpets. All of these issues have been raised numerous times with management and no action was taken to address them.
There is no furniture at the RAF Offices: There is no furniture because the Sheriff continues to attach property and this results in employees improvising and constructing makeshift tables using boxes to assist them in carrying out their daily duties. This has resulted in employees complaining of backaches because the chairs are not comfortable. Employees are forced to come to the office despite the Union requesting employer to allow them to work from home. About two weeks ago, the sheriff was back again and we expect that more items will be attached and seized to settle outstanding debts of the entity.
Hostile working environment: We also highlighted the behavior of the CEO Collins Letsoalo and the hostile working environment that has been created under his leadership. We raised the fact that he blocked the union from engaging SCOPA during their visit to RAF offices in Parktown, and the atmosphere of fear that he has created in the workplace. The CEO must radically change his attitude and work with us, instead of working against us. He must stop bullying workers and engage the union in a meaningful way. If he shares the goal of the union, which is to save RAF, then he needs to adjust his attitude and act in a transparent manner, otherwise he must be removed.
He needs the support of employees to help him turn RAF around, because he cannot do it alone. NUMSA believes that RAF can be saved and it can be made to be more viable. And part of the solution must be to stop any more plans to cut jobs, because such a plan, will only worsen the crisis at RAF, and it will not solve the claims backlog. Our members have the skills and the know how to do this work, but these issues which we have raised are an obstacle to solving the crisis.
Aluta continua!
The struggle continues!
Issued by Irvin Jim, NUMSA General Secretary, 12 September 2023
