Collins Letsoalo a no-show for Parliament’s RAF inquiry

Former Road Accident Fund (RAF) chief executive officer (CEO) Collins Letsoalo has been a no-show in Parliament on Tuesday morning to answer to a financial maladministration probe conducted by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA).

Letsoalo has been summoned twice to appear, although a court sheriff could not locate him personally at residential addresses linked to him.

Members of Parliament (MPs) said that they will give him the benefit of the doubt and wait until 5pm on Tuesday for him to pitch.

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In an SMS to the committee’s legal advisor, Fatima Ebrahim, Letsoalo appeals to her to stop harassing him, and to desist from creating the impression that he’s gone into hiding.

The committee has set aside two days to hear his testimony following seven weeksof evidence by former and current employees related to the management of the RAF’s financial affairs under Letsoalo’s tenure, which ended in August.

SCOPA chairperson Songezo Zibi said it can’t be presumed that Letsoalo has received the first summons at a place of residence, nor that he’s seen the second one posted to Parliament’s digital platforms.

“When there was an attempt to serve it, he wasn’t there. He can’t therefore make the assumption here, that it’s his fault that he was not there, that he’s received the summons. So that’s why we have to be here in order to wait for him, nonetheless.”

Zibi said the committee has not received a lawyer’s letter circulating in the public domain in which Letsoalo again questions the authority of the committee to conduct this inquiry.

Nevertheless, the committee said it rejects Letsoalo’s reasons communicated in legal letters for his non-appearance.

The Democratic Alliance’s Patrick Atkinson and ActionSA’s Alan Beesley saidif he does not pitch later, the committee must lay a criminal complaint against him.

The meeting has adjourned for now.