4 June 2026

The African National Congress (ANC) Parliamentary Study Group on Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) welcomes and unequivocally supports the decisive pronouncement adopted by SCOPA to request the Secretary to Parliament to lay criminal charges against the former Chief Executive Officer of the Road Accident Fund (RAF), Mr. Collins Letsoalo.

This historic pronouncement follows an 8-3 majority vote by the committee, which ANC Study Group voted in affirmative, enforcing absolute accountability after Mr. Letsoalo who deliberately defied a lawful parliamentary summons issued since November 2025 during SCOPA’s oversight enquiry into the gross governance and financial distress at the RAF.

It must be emphasised that public entities are funded by taxpayers, and accounting officers are public trustees. Appearing before Parliament is a non-negotiable statutory duty, not an optional exercise subject to personal convenience or bureaucratic elitism. As the ANC Study Group, we view any defiance of parliamentary processes as an unacceptable assault on the constitutional architecture of our democratic state.

Grounded in our ANC policy on professionalisation of the state and ethical leadership, ourstance is directly anchored in the core resolutions of the ANC’s 55th National Conference on Legislature and Governance, amongst others that:  

• The ANC must actively combat the lack of oversight and consequence management within public structures. 
• All state deployees and public administrators must be held to rigorous accountability frameworks to restore public trust and protect institutional integrity. 
• Rule 25 of the ANC Constitution and broader governance protocols must be leveraged to enforce strict discipline and eliminate subversion of state oversight.

Furthermore, our unequivocal support for SCOPA’s pronouncement, must also be seen as ANC putting its policy on organizational renewal and aggressive consequence management into active practice. The culture of treating parliamentary committees with disdain and impunity is officially over.

Mr. Letsoalo’s failure to appear is a direct violation of established legal prescripts and provisions that safeguard our democracy:

1. Section 56(a) and (b) of the Constitutionexplicitly empowers the National Assembly and its committees to summon any person to appear before it to give evidence or produce documentation. Defying a committee equals defying the Constitution itself.
2. Section 17(1) of the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act (Act 4 of 2004) explicitly dictates that any person who is duly summonsed under Section 14 and fails, without sufficient cause, to attend at the specified time and place, commits a criminal offence. Upon conviction, they face a fine, imprisonment for up to 12 months, or both. 
3. As the former Accounting Officer, Mr. Letsoalo had a legal obligation to abide by the prescripts of the PFMA. Evading an inquiry into the RAF’s litigation costs and wasteful expenditure, amongst others, severely violates the core spirit of the PFMA.

The ANC Study Group on SCOPA, commends the resolute multi-party consensus within SCOPA that led to this solid 8-3 vote to enforce accountability. By pushing forward after receiving confirmation that the National Assembly Speaker’s formal concurrence was not a prerequisite under the law, the committee has set a vital precedent.

Let this decisive action serve as an unambiguous warning to all executives of State-Owned Entities (SOEs), public entities, and government departments, that the era of treating Parliament with disdain or dismissing its oversight processes is completely over. No individual, no matter how influential or senior, is above the law or immune to constitutional scrutiny.

The RAF is a vital public institution meant to provide a social security safety net to accident victims and vulnerable families. It cannot be run as a personal fiefdom or shielded from accountability amidst troubling allegations of governance failures and financial distress.

As the ANC, we continue to reaffirm our resolve of building a professionally capable and ethical development state. We call on all stakeholders to act decisively, enforce accountability, and restore public trust in the institutions of government.

Issued by the Whip of the ANC Study Group on Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), Cde Gijimani Skosana (MP)

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