SCOPA to begin working on draft report into RAF maladministration

Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) will on Tuesday start working on its draft report on the Road Accident Fund (RAF) after its three-month long inquiry into maladministration.

Committee chairperson Songezo Zibi said he’s satisfied by the way the inquiry has been handled and believes it will set a benchmark for overseeing other troubled State entities.

ALSO READ: Parliament concludes RAF inquiry without former CEO Collins Letsoalo's testimony

The committee has, however, failed to get the former RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo to testify in response to the many allegations of misconduct levelled against him by witnesses after he snubbed parliamentary summonses to appear.

From a clean audit in 2020, the RAF followed that up with two disclaimers and three adverse audit opinions in the years that followed.

Following testimony from the Auditor General, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), accounting bodies, RAF officials, former staff and boards of the entity, SCOPA will now begin to draft its findings and recommendations.

Zibi said that he believes the process has been a worthwhile one, not only for the RAF.

“We will also be able to have more specific oversight criteria, so in the case of the RAF, we won’t rely on the annual report, which is what Parliament does, and management decides what it discloses in the annual report, so they drive the oversight themselves.”

Although Letsoalo challenged the authority of the committee to conduct the probe, Zibi said that he will be afforded the opportunity to respond to sections of the report that impact him.

“If he is inclined to take the report on review, then it needs to be clear from beginning to end that he was given every opportunity to comment on the report.”

The committee is expected to wrap up deliberations on the report for onward presentation to the National Assembly by the end of February.