Committee takes on Road Accident Benefit Scheme Bill
South Africa President, Cyril Ramaphosa |
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, July 18,
2018/ -- The Portfolio Committee on Transport has called on local communities
to come in numbers and attend public hearings on the Road Accident Benefit
Scheme (RABS) Bill starting from next week.
The Chairperson of the Committee,
Ms Dikeledi Magadzi, said the committee is looking to solicit views as wide as
possible on the new model for the Road Accident Fund.
“Parliamentarians are representatives
of the people, hence it is important in legislation making that from time to
time, and on critical matters, we go to the people and ask how they see the law
working to their benefit. These public hearings are about that, giving South
Africans to air their views on such an important piece of legislation as the
RABS Bill,” Magadzi said.
“We are saying this is not a
process of lawyers and professionals but ordinary people in villages and in
towns. Our people must influence government policy as well as government
programmes, our people must benefit out of law-making,” she added.
The committee will hold public
hearings on the RABS Bill throughout the nine provinces of the country. The
benefit scheme will replace the Road Accident Fund Act, and is intended to
extend benefits more to the accident victims. Various proposals have been made
during the parliamentary leg of the public hearings, where professional bodies
came to present.
Issues that came to the fore
during the public hearings on the RABS Bill included scrupulous lawyers,
challenges with the introduction of a no-fault system, income generation
potential for those victims whose income generation is cut short while still at
university
Ms Magadzi said all the inputs
will make the committee wiser and the different views expressed will find
expression in the Bill.
Committee programme is available
on request and the public hearings will start in the North West.
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