The Road Accident Fund plans to establish 12 more satellite offices across the country in an attempt to encourage crash victims to deal with the fund directly without the assistance of lawyers.
The Road Accident Fund plans to establish 12 more satellite offices across the country in an attempt to encourage crash victims to deal with the fund directly without the assistance of lawyers.
That means people living outside Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, East London and Cape Town will no longer have to travel long distances to reach the fund.
Since last year, the fund has established satellite offices in Nelspruit, Welkom, Newcastle, Polokwane, Tzaneen and Port Elizabeth. This will bring the number of such offices to 18.
Although the satellite offices only assisted with the fund’s patient outreach programmes and received claims lodged directly by accident victims, the fund plans to introduce a service whereby claimants can check the progress of their claims.
“We are busy finalising arrangements to open another 12 offices. We have drawn up an operational plan for the new offices,” quoted fund spokesman Themba Mhambi as saying.
He said the fund could have established more offices if the fund had had sufficient resources. “We are hopeful that government will address our financial situation,” Mhambi said.
In an effort to spare the cash-strapped fund’s resources, the establishment of new offices would be in partnership with other government departments with the view to sharing resources.
“We have been meeting the North West transport department to see if we can share facilities. We have also made contact with KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga to work out a plan to expand the fund’s presence,” Mhambi said.