APRAV In Action 1 April 2019

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Q1 of 2019 – It’s a wrap!

Aprav hit the ground running at the beginning of 2019 and is wrapping up Q1 with no shortage of momentum, opportunity, challenge and success. Our key focus this quarter was to prevent the RABS Bill from getting through Parliament before the general election…..and we succeeded.

Thank you to everyone who contributed – from long hours of travelling and ‘suffering’ through National Assembly sittings to the many encouraging emails and messages we received. And a special thank you to our donors.

RABS:
What happens between now and year-end

•The general election is now the focal point of activities.

•The 6th democratic parliament of South Africa will be constituted around July 2019.

•No parliamentary schedule has been published yet.

•Between the election and the commencement of the 6th Parliament, a lot of ‘jockeying for key positions takes place’.

•Cabinet Ministers will be announced, as well as who will occupy senior positions, such as the Chief Whip in Parliament (currently Jackson Mthembu), Chairpersons of Portfolio Committees etc.

•All political parties must nominate their members for Committees, including the Portfolio Committee on Transport.

•A group called the “Whip of Whips” (Whips from all the political parties) then meet to determine the overall programme for 2019, as well as prioritise all immediate/pending business.

•It is at this stage that the RABS Bill will come to the fore again…the ANC will attempt to schedule a ‘Second Reading’ of the RABS Bill, which they failed to orchestrate late in 2018.

•We estimate this to likely occur around July 2019.

•It is at this stage that the DA Review Application in the Cape Town High Court will become very relevant…surely the ANC cannot proceed with a Second Reading with a pending court application!?

It is important enough to repeat, APRAV will continue to be actively involved in all Parliamentary proceedings and continue to work towards a fair, affordable and constitutional alternative to the current RABS Bill.

Key dates for STT Meetings

National STT – 13 April 2019

Western Cape Task Team – 9 May 2019

KZN Task Team – 16 May 2019

FS Task Team – 23 May 2019

Scenario 1: The ANC obtains a majority on the Second Reading of the RABS Bill: It is referred to the NCOP for ratification (mere rubber stamp) and then submitted to the President for final consideration. The President considers whether the tagging of the Bill is correct (its not!), does it comply with the Constitution (its does not!) and is it affordable (its not!). APRAV makes submissions to the President during this period and ensures that he is well informed.

•Scenario 2: The DA Review Application to have their Minority Report included in all proceedings, is successful. The RABS Bill is referred back to the Portfolio Committee to debate and adopt a ‘new’ RABS PoCT Report – this time including all the DA arguments against the Bill. Both documents – this time complete with the relevant information – is resubmitted to the National Assembly. MP’s cannot plead that they are not aware of all the RABS flaws. This makes it much more difficult to simply ‘push it through’. It also makes it very difficult for the President, knowing about all these issues, to simply approve the Bill.

•Scenario 3: The President disagrees with the tagging of the Bill and requests it be changed to a Section 76 or 77 Bill. All goes back to zero and the whole ‘RABS’ process starts from scratch again – wiping out the development of the past five years.

•Scenario 4: The President is dissatisfied with the funding model. It is referred back to the Portfolio Committee. Treasury then has a major say in whether RABS proceed or not. The PoCT must redebate the funding of RABS and issue a revised report. Only then can they proceed with a Second Reading. if this is successful, it goes back to the President.

•Scenario 5: The President is dissatisfied with the constitutionality of RABS and refers it back to the Portfolio Committee. The State Law Advisors have a major say whether it proceeds or not. The PoCT must redebate RABS’s constitutionality and issue a revised report. It then again proceeds to a Second Reading and if successful, back to the President again…

•Scenario 6: The Portfolio Committee withdraws the RABS Bill and proposes a ‘new’ PoCT Committee Bill on the RAF/RABS.

•Scenario 7: RABS Bill becomes a law but is tied op in courts for years to come.

•Scenario 8: Government supports a RAF rescue plan. A new set of Regulations is approved to facilitate industry transformation within the current RAF system context.

•Scenario 9: This list is not exhaustive…

The Portfolio Committee of Transport (PoCT) plays a key role in driving progress of the RABS Bill. In the 6th Parliament, this Committee will play an equally important role on any RAF, RABS or ‘alternative to RABS’ matters. We thought it appropriate to investigate the likely changes to this Committee in the 6th Parliament.

Below is a list of the current Members and their positions on the newly published political party candidate lists. The list also shows the current MP number political party split and in the last column we indicate the likely chance of a member ‘returning’ to the PoCT. We ventured into making a few predictions

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY SEATS based on the 2014 election results

Find the party lists on the IEC website – https://www.elections.org.za/IECOnline/2019-Candidate-Lists

VOICES AND VIEWS:

Prof Klopper’s article will be published later this year.
APRAV has permission to use it on our website – Find it here http://bit.ly/2HX6hu2

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Minister Tito Mboweni’s views on SOEs
article by Chris Bateman
http://bit.ly/2FuPL1u

Is the RAF’s litigation in urgent need of review?

LATEST RESEARCH ON THE ROAD ACCIDENT FUND
article by
Prof Hennie Klopper
De Rebus, March 2019

http://bit.ly/2Ts0tPj

“One of the RAF expenses that alarmingly burgeoned, is the amount the RAF spends on litigation. RAF annual reports shows a phenomenal increase of 120% from 2005 to 2017.”

The article covers the following from the 2018 Gauteng Division of Pretoria’s Court Roll. In 86% of cases the RAF is the defendant and less than 1% of cases that it defends proceed to trial. This means that 99,56% of all cases defended by the RAF are settled and could have been resolved through early settlement without litigation.

RAF – Shocking lies continues

GroundUp analysed 111 3A agencies. The average top executive was paid nearly R2.5m in 2017/18 despite problems at their agencies. Eugene Watson, former head of the RAF, was paid nearly R4m despite only serving for the first three months of that year. It included a R2m ‘performance bonus’. An RAF spokesperson told GroundUp the agency achieved 90% of its performance targets under Watson. Article by Jon Allsop – http://bit.ly/2FHGkwM

Really? Let’s look at the facts

Achieved 90% of its performance targets??

•Only 40 000 out of 92 000 claims finalised!

•25% of direct claims allowed to prescribe!

•Under-settlement of direct claims!

•R8,8 billion spent on unwarranted litigation!

•±R2 billion spent on interest!

•Average claims completion period approaching 5 years!

No offers being made – resulting in clogging up the courts!

Australian Road Accident Statistics 2019 – http://bit.ly/2UjHsix

What’s on?

PETITION FOR AIR-CONDITIONING GAUTENG HIGH COURT, Pretoria

The air-conditioning in the Gauteng High Court has been completely dysfunctional since last year. The high temperatures have reached such a critical stage that a colleague recently collapsed from the heat. It was widely reported by the media – see article on the Pretoria News website: https://is.gd/G5LyBs.

The Pretoria Attorneys’ Association is organising a petition to the Departments of Justice and Public Works to urgently attend to the this matter in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria. The situation is critical as justice cannot be dispensed under these circumstances.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION HERE: https://is.gd/hh8Mbc

Some Social Science from APRAV Digital

Our March Twitter dashboard

TWITTER GLOSSARY:

Impression: a tweet is delivered to a Twitter account’s timeline. Not everyone will read it, but it’s possible. Profile visits: Number of times users visits our profile page. Mentions: Number of times @APRAVlive is mentioned in Tweets. Followers: Users who opt to follow our tweets. Every time we tweet, it shows in their feeds. Engagements: Number of times users interact with a Tweet – click on it, retweet, replies, follows, likes, etc. Engagement rate: Number of engagements divide by impressions.

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The information in ‘The Year 2017/2018 at a Glance’ is taken from the Road Accident Fund’s Annual Report. We want to highlight that RAF reports have previously been known to portray information in a very favourable way that might not give the full story ‘At a First Glance‘. This makes for careful reading in context.