Public spat playing out between RAF and legal practitioner

A war of words is playing out in public between the Road Accident Fund (RAF) and a legal practitioner.

RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo says the RAF is a victim of a media campaign orchestrated by some legal practitioners, academics and journalists after they failed to capture the fund.

Gert Nel, an attorney mentioned as one of those involved in the alleged propaganda campaign refutes the claims and accuses Letsoalo of telling the public half-truths.

Letsoalo says the fund is under attack and propaganda is being used to drive a negative narrative. He has named a lawyer, an academic, and a journalist amongst others he says are driving the campaign as they have failed to capture the fund.

He says there has been an attempt to capture the management, the board and key positions within the fund. He alleges that when these attempts failed, the individuals have been spreading propaganda and spreading falsehoods about the fund and its management.

“We are going to name them for what they are, we have all the evidence of some of them trying to capture some of us, inviting us to funny places and when we don’t come, then we are the most difficult people. They have got to deal with and they think that because they have won and collapsed RAPS as a bill, they are also going to collapse the RAF or collapse the RAF amendment bill, that is not going to happen, we are going to fight and we are going to put up a fight against that,” says Letsoalo.

Nel, accused by Letsoalo as one of the orchestrators of the alleged attack against the fund, has refuted the claim and says any engagement he has had with Letsoalo was aimed at introducing solutions to challenges the Fund faces in terms of administration and managing claims, settling claims and reducing litigation.

“It’s quite disconcerting that the help that was offered is now being used to this extend in a smear campaign and I think in general that was always the narrative of the RAF is to always try and paint plaintiff attorneys as the bogy man in this story. There were a few publications that have quoted in terms of certain things that we experienced from the plaintiff’s experience which I felt that because of the lack of oversight since COVID, that the RAF, the executive and the board have been allowed to introduce challenges to plaintiffs which we thought need to be brought to the Minister’s attention. And to anybody that can consider what they are doing and I maintain that Mr. Letsoalo with all due respects was selling half-truths to the public in terms of what his purported view is a turnaround strategy, quick fixes like introducing board notices to make it even more difficult for victims of road crashes to claim from the RAF is in no way allowing the public to gain access to the RAF,” says Nel.

Nel further refutes claims that his law firm represents foreign nationals claiming from the RAF and then keeps the money to themselves. He says if they are not able to pay out to any of their clients, it’s because the RAF is holding back the money.

Video: RAF media briefing to ‘unmask efforts to capture’ the fund: Collins Letsoalo