RAF ‘insolvent and it cheated’

LIABILITIES: ACCUSED OF 'SLEIGHT OF HAND'

- Sipho Mabena

An actuary has described as “an accounting sleight of hand”, a move that masked the fund’s insolvency and misled parliament and the public.

In an affidavit submitted to the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), Itayi Charakupa, a former Road Accident Fund (RAF) senior actuarial manager, revealed how the embattled entity's 2020-21 financial statements understated its true claims liability by hundreds of billions of rands through an unauthorised accounting policy change.

"The RAF's underlying obligation to accident victims did not disappear; it was under-reported,

"In reality, the outstanding claims liability was around R340 billion," he said.