SMVAF WANTS FUEL LEVY HIKE TO AVOID INSOLVENCY

MBABANE – The Sincephetelo Motor Vehicle Accidents Fund (SMVAF) could be insolvent by 2023 if the 35 cents per litre fuel levy is not increased. 

This was revealed by the management of the fund yesterday during a media launch of the Seamless Sincephetelo Strategy 2020-2024, held at the organisation’s head office. 

Thabiso Mamba, who is the government parastatal’s Investment Manager, said the organisation should be at least receiving 60 cents, even though it would still be underfunded. 

He said according to their calculations, the real costs were estimated to be around 83 cents. 

 He was supported by Corporate Executive Max Mkhonta, who said if the institution did not reposition itself, it would definitely face insolvency. 

Meanwhile, the organisation’s Chief Executive Officer, David Myeni, revealed that they had not as yet approached Cabinet for the review of the fuel levy or presented them with figures. 

Myeni said they not only needed to present their case to Cabinet, but also Parliament for an amendment of the Act, not only on the increase of the fuel levy, but other provisions which now needed to be changed. 

Urgently

Martin Simelane, who is the Chief Financial Officer, also said the review of the fuel levy was needed to be undertaken urgently. 

He said the 35 cents was introduced in 2011 and with the ever escalating costs, it was not enough to sustain the fund. “The only way to save the fund would be an increase in the levy,” said Simelane. He further stated that the actual amount which was received by SMVAF was 33 cents as the other two cents was paid to the Eswatini Railways.

Meanwhile, Mkhonta stated that if the organisation did not reposition itself ,they would have a challenge retaining the current 112 employees they had. He said as a result, the parastatal was now hands-on in attending to victims of motor vehicle accidents as soon as possible after the accident had occurred. He said for the survival of the institution, they were being proactive by attending to the victims. 

He said they had now partnered with the Emergency Preparedness Response (EPR) and the Royal Eswatini Police Service to ensure that accidents were reported timeously. 

It was revealed that SMVAF had paid about E150 000 to fix about five EPR ambulances which were parked at the Central Transport Administration after being involved in accidents.  

Mkhonta stated that they were also in the process of purchasing their own ambulances and case officers would be deployed to the hospitals where the victims would be treated.  He stated that with the new operating model they were proactive. He stated that the current fund model was re-active and the fund was triggered when the claim was registered not when the accident occurred. It was stated that under 50 per cent of claims were registered later than six months after the accident.    

Cost

The management revealed that the cost of rehabilitation was also higher if the victim had not received proper medical care when the accident occurred. 

Mamba also revealed that in some instances, the parastatal spent about E30 000 to E40 000 investigating claims only to find that the victim did not qualify to receive any compensation. 

They stated that they also had walk-in customers, who tried to make money out of the institution by making false claims.

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