The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) had applied to have the curatorship at Pro Sano medical scheme lifted before the end of this year, CMS spokeswoman Aleksandra Serwa said this week.
A lifting of the curatorship would pave the way for a new board of trustees. The scheme was put under curatorship more than two years ago when the then board of trustees was found to be dysfunctional.
There were also allegations of nepotism, embezzlement of funds and disregard for corporate governance rules.
People in the industry have questioned having a curator for such a long time but Serwa defended this, saying it was necessary. She said the curator needed to satisfy himself and the council that the scheme was ready to be independent again.
"The curator has managed to restore the scheme back to health and compliance with applicable laws. He has successfully addressed the governance issues that were troubling the scheme," said Serwa.
Curator Joe Seoloane said there were two outstanding issues he still had to sort out.
"One relates to the sale of shares that Pro Sano owns in a company that is an administrator. The law does not allow schemes to have shares in an administrator. We also have to realign operations and tighten the scheme's rules," he said.
Although the scheme has improved on the governance side, it is still battling to grow its membership and is still not operating at the level it was before the curator came on board. But Seoloane said this was not unique to Pro Sano as all schemes were struggling to increase membership.
There were about 35 000 members before the curator came on board. That number dropped to 31 403 by 2007 and Seoloane said it had not changed much this year.
"We have replaced the people that we lost. Like all the other medical schemes, we have lost members to Gems (the Government Employees Medical Scheme). There were people who left because they were unsettled when a curator came on board and they were not sure if the scheme was going under," said Seoloane.
He added: "There are also those who left because they could not afford to have a medical aid anymore."
Seoloane said the scheme was going to focus on recruiting younger members so that it could have a mixed-age profile because at present most of its members were older people.
Last year Pro Sano collected premiums totalling R592 million and it paid claims worth R568m.