RAF recently won a case against a woman who tried force it through the court to pay compensation believing she was legally in customary marriage.
THE Road Accident Fund (RAF), which has lost billions of rands to fraudsters, successfully stopped a former teacher from claiming compensation following the death of a man she claimed to be her husband.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court found that Lulama Kunene was lying about her customary marriage.
Acting Judge Nako ruled that Kunene had first failed to get money from the late Magistrate Edmund Nkosi’s estate after it was found that her claim that they were married was baseless.
Kunene then approached the court seeking an order that she be compensated by the RAF for the loss of support due to Nkosi’s death in a car accident.
“Similarly, the plaintiff did not inherit from the deceased’s estate on the same basis and yet, she approached this court knowing that her claim to be the customary law wife and/or life partner of the deceased was baseless,” said Nako late last week.
He also saddled Kunene, who remained unemployed since her resignation from her teaching job in 2010, with legal costs.
Kunene’s lawyer Youvashnee Pillay said Kunene requested her not to comment because of “the attorney/ client privilege that I hold.”
“We regrettably have no comment to be made on any type of public domain or platform, and request that my client’s rights be respected.
“We also record that there are two minor children involved and in their best interest, we have been instructed to not engage further,” said Pillay.
The RAF has in the past three years successfully blocked R65 million’s worth of bogus claims which amounted to 2031 claims.
One of these led to the successful prosecution and a five-year jail sentence of Siyabulela Kima by the East London Regional Court, for claiming R8.3 million. He had lied to the RAF that his car accident was caused by a speeding vehicle, which overtook a truck and collided with his car, leading him to lose control and then slam into a house. However, it was discovered that Kima suffered an epileptic attack while he was driving which led to the accident.
During the court proceedings on Kunene's application, the RAF rejected her claim that she was married to Nkosi who died in a car accident seven years ago. Since she had no married certificate, she said the fact that he had paid lobola and that she had lived with him and their two children, constituted a customary marriage.
In arguing against her claim, the RAF said the lobola, which was R20 000 was a “seduction fine”, as Kunene was already pregnant with her first child when it was paid.
The court heard that after the lobola payment, Nkosi and Kunene did not hold any other traditional ceremony, did not register the marriage with the Department of Home Affairs and she was also not introduced to the first wife, the steps, which according to the court, were required to validate the relationship under the Customary Marriages Act.
Nako said the fact that there was no ceremony held meant that the “marriage remained an unfulfilled promise in the 13 years after the lobolo was paid.”
In rejecting Kunene’s application, Nako said: “Clearly the plaintiff was in an intimate relationship with the deceased but the unfulfilled promise of marriage over a period of 13 years, coupled with the clear separation in asset ownership and the extent marriage of the deceased to his first wife, are indicative that this relationship was no more than a love relationship, encompassing financial support from the deceased to the plaintiff to ensure that she was available to look after the minor children.
“The law, as it stands, entitles a person to claim from the Road Accident Fund what they are legally entitled to. “This relationship was not akin to a marriage, and as such, the duty of support does not arise,” said Nako.