Pretoria - The number of people arrested for defrauding the Road Accident Fund (RAF) rose from 290 in the 2012/13 financial year to 478 in the 2013/14 year, chief executive Eugene Watson said on Tuesday.
“The fraud is both internal and external. We have a fraud prevention plan in place. The percentage in our annual report is largely external,” Watson told reporters in Pretoria.
He said like medical schemes and investment houses, the RAF faced the constant risk of corporate fraud.
“We have fictitious claims, accidents and occupants. We then have fictitious medical reports, evidence, and we may also have collusion between attorneys, our staff members, doctors, touts and so forth,” said Watson.
“It is a wide variety of fraud risks that we are exposed to.”
The RAF recently appointed a new general manager for forensics who had worked for the Special Investigating Unit.
He said the number of those arrested for fraud in the 2012/13
financial year may have been so much lower than the current year because the fraudulent claims involved vehicles with fewer occupants.
“This institution has been around for a long time and the risk of fraud has always been there. What we are more focused on is the number of cases we find. The more cases we find, the more we investigate,” Watson said. - Sapa