Parliament's legal advisers have found that the Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula and the leadership of the Road Accident Fund (RAF) could not use legal action as an excuse for not submitting the fund's financials and audit report to Parliament.

This, notes a Fin24 report, concludes a debacle which saw Mbalula lock horns with Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke over whether the RAF was obliged to table its annual report before Parliament.

Maluleke maintained that there was nothing in law preventing her from publishing the AG's audit report into RAF.

The RAF approached the Gauteng High Court without success in February to prevent the publication of the report. The RAF plans to appeal the ruling.

Due to the court action and changed accounting policy, Mbalula argued that the annual report could not be tabled. But this week, Parliament's chief legal adviser Zuraya Adhikarie told Scopa that Mbalula and the RAF could not use sub judice to forgo Parliament's oversight function.

Adhikarie said the oversight mandate of Parliament should not be stifled by litigation processes that may take years to resolve.

She said Mbalula should be asked to account for the failure to table the annual report from the RAF.

She said the tabling of an explanation for the delay does not absolve Mbalula from his responsibility to comply with the Public Finance Management Act.

Full Fin24 report