The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has volunteered to assist the health department and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to investigate fraudulent claims by lawyers.
On Saturday the department and the SIU revealed how dodgy lawyers have brazenly looted state funds through bogus medico-legal claims amounting to billions.
Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi and SIU head Andy Mothibi outlined the “explosion” of medical malpractice litigation against provincial health departments and individual health practitioners.
The RAF said it is willing to assist the SIU and the department in their investigations of fraudulent activities.
“Defrauding government departments and entities robs South Africans, claimants and their families of their livelihoods. It is profoundly disappointing that some hospital patients and accident survivors encounter thieves disguised as professionals,” said RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo.
The fund said the revelation is a vindication of what it has often said about lawyers being at the forefront of grand-scale looting of state coffers.
“The fund has a database of lawyers and doctors who have been involved in swindling the RAF, and possibly the department of health, with fraudulent claims, and the RAF can make the information available to the SIU. The alleged fraudulent activities by lawyers also support comment by judge president of the Gauteng division of the high court, Dunstan Mlambo, in December 2023 at a judges’ conference that lawyers are bleeding the fund’s finances through rampant theft,” said the fund.
The RAF said from 2020/21 to 2022/23, through its internal forensic investigation department, it successfully stopped fraudulent claims to the value of R2.6bn.
“This is money that could have been paid out if it were not for the measures put in place to fight corruption. The fund’s fraud strategy includes that of deterring, preventing and intercepting corruption internally and through partnerships,” it said.
Among the cases uncovered by the SIU was one in which two lawyers simultaneously claimed damages for the same case in two different courts, one claiming R7.5m and the other R25m.
TimesLIVE
RAF offers to help health department and SIU investigate billions in fraudulent claims by lawyers
Two claimed damages for the same case in two different courts
The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has volunteered to assist the health department and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to investigate fraudulent claims by lawyers.
On Saturday the department and the SIU revealed how dodgy lawyers have brazenly looted state funds through bogus medico-legal claims amounting to billions.
Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi and SIU head Andy Mothibi outlined the “explosion” of medical malpractice litigation against provincial health departments and individual health practitioners.
The RAF said it is willing to assist the SIU and the department in their investigations of fraudulent activities.
“Defrauding government departments and entities robs South Africans, claimants and their families of their livelihoods. It is profoundly disappointing that some hospital patients and accident survivors encounter thieves disguised as professionals,” said RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo.
The fund said the revelation is a vindication of what it has often said about lawyers being at the forefront of grand-scale looting of state coffers.
“The fund has a database of lawyers and doctors who have been involved in swindling the RAF, and possibly the department of health, with fraudulent claims, and the RAF can make the information available to the SIU. The alleged fraudulent activities by lawyers also support comment by judge president of the Gauteng division of the high court, Dunstan Mlambo, in December 2023 at a judges’ conference that lawyers are bleeding the fund’s finances through rampant theft,” said the fund.
The RAF said from 2020/21 to 2022/23, through its internal forensic investigation department, it successfully stopped fraudulent claims to the value of R2.6bn.
“This is money that could have been paid out if it were not for the measures put in place to fight corruption. The fund’s fraud strategy includes that of deterring, preventing and intercepting corruption internally and through partnerships,” it said.
Among the cases uncovered by the SIU was one in which two lawyers simultaneously claimed damages for the same case in two different courts, one claiming R7.5m and the other R25m.
TimesLIVE
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