Two Road Accident Fund (RAF) officials defended two media contracts, each worth an estimated half a million rand, before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Wednesday, 15 October 2025.
Spokesperson McIntosh Polela and communication specialist Hlami Nicolette Mathye appeared in Parliament, arguing that the contracts provided value and were effective in marketing to accident victims.
The contracts were provided to Media Mix 360 in 2022, with an expiration date in 2027, and to Dzinge Productions in 2024, with an expiration date in 2028.
Each contract featured a budget allocation of R100 million to be provided to the companies over five years.
MPs discussed various issues surrounding the contracts, flagging dodgy invoices. Among the invoices was one amounting to R48,300 for a single bucket hat from Dzinge Productions.
However, Polela explained that, while the invoice only showed a quantity of one hat, it was for more than one unit.
The RAF has already spent roughly R400 million on the Media Mix 360 contract, and as of March 2025, it had spent R245 million with Dzinge Productions.
Mathye said former RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo had insisted on issuing a tender for the fund’s marketing obligations as its previous agreement with GCIS was set to expire.
Mathye chaired the bid adjudication committee for the tender. She stated that the cost-benefit analysis indicated that GCIS was more cost-effective.
However, she claims the Letsoalo rejected the report and refused to sign a renewed contract with the GCIS.
Regarding the flagged media contracts, Polela said South Africans had been starved of information from the RAF.
Therefore, he pushed for the agency to improve its media resources, public communication, and community engagement. He said the campaigns that arose from the contracts were effective.
“I’m very proud of the work that we’re doing,” said Polela, giving an example of the RAF “success story” videos posted to social media and aired on TV.
“Success stores we put up on both YouTube and Mzansi Magic. One of our videos is sitting at 900,000 views.
Dodgy IT contract
The RAF fell victim to a ransomware attack in 2021 and allegedly used the fallout from the attack to irregularly appoint an IT contractor after having already appointed another company to work on system recovery.
Little is known about the ransomware attack, as almost no information surrounding the incident has been disclosed to the public. It also isn’t mentioned in the RAF’s annual reports and performance plans.
A ransomware attack was briefly mentioned in Parliamentary committee meetings, and law firm Adams & Adams mentioned it in passing in an article from March 2022.
“The Department of Justice had a major cyber attack, which led to loss of data; the Road Accident Fund was also hit by a similar attack,” it stated.
The first details about the attack only really surfaced in September 2025. It was revealed that the RAF appointed cybersecurity firm Mitigate under emergency protocols to stabilise its systems.
However, shortly afterwards, Letsoala issued an instruction to bring another company on board: RedM Professional Services.
At the time, Vusi Magagula was at the helm of RedM Professional Services. Reports claimed that he was an associate of Lestoalo’s.
The company initially billed R5.6 million for its services. However, the scope of its contract was later extended to a total of R14.6 million.
It seems the RAF refused to pay RedM, and the company subsequently took legal action against the fund for the non-payment of R9.1 million.
RedM is adamant that its appointment in 2021 was not irregular and wasn’t influenced by personal ties between Magagula and Letsoalo.
Magagula also denied allegations of impropriety. He said claims that Letoalo introduced him were “factually incorrect”.
Letsoalo could not be reached for comment. Magagula was contacted for comment, but did not respond by publication.
This article was originally published on MyBroadband and was republished with permission.
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