As many road accident victims wait to be compensated by the Road Accident Fund (RAF) following court orders in their favour, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) is expected to soon deal with the fund’s inability to pay up.

A Pretoria News report says hundreds of claimants recently turned to the court where they had obtained an urgent order to attach eight of the RAF’s Absa bank accounts. The bank was ordered to use the proceeds from the accounts to pay the 346 injured victims. The RAF in turn headed to court last month in a bid to get the order lifted, saying it simply could not afford to pay these claimants as its outstanding debt was more than R17bn.

The fund said it couldn't operate without its bank accounts as it was struggling to stay afloat.

The application was not entertained by the court as urgent, which meant that the bank accounts remained attached. But it came to light that the RAF then instructed the bank not to honour the attachment order.

Western Cape law firm Simpsons Incorporated subsequently turned to court on an urgent basis to try to force the RAF and the bank to make the payments. But it emerged that the matter was much more complex, with several lawyers telling the court that they intended to intervene in the application to try to force the RAF to also pay its clients.

Counsel for Simpsons Incorporated said that this was a matter of national importance because as things now stood, claimants were not being paid although they had court orders in their favour. It was agreed that the parties would now ask Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba for a preferential date for their urgent application to be heard.

The RAF said it intended to launch an application that they be given at least 180 days in which to pay pending claims.

According to the Pretoria News report, it said that these applicants were jumping the gun and it first had to pay those waiting the longest.

‘The average claims which are settled and not paid to claimants every month, is R4.3bn, which is way more than the R3.5bn which the applicant receives every month,’ it said.

In the latest application, Simpsons Incorporated’s Kim Ross said there was sufficient funds in the attached bank accounts to pay their clients who had obtained the attachment order. She said there was no lawful excuse for the bank to refuse the payments.

The RAF’s stance is that although there is a court order in place regarding the attachment of its bank accounts, the order cannot be executed as all interested parties should have been alerted of the order.

Full Pretoria News report