Sincephetelo Motor Vehicle Accidents Fund was established by the Government of Eswatini through Parliament Act No. 13 of 1991, as amended by Act No. 20 of 2011, as an instrument to compensate victims of traffic accidents resulting from negligent driving, whether they survived the crash or died as a result.
Through this noble mandate, the fund indemnifies the faults of the insured driver against claims from injured parties, be they drivers, passengers or pedestrians. To sustain this venture, government allocated the fund a fuel levy through which claims and the running of the organisation are funded.
The fund operates on a fault-based system, meaning that anyone injured and lodging a claim with the fund must point to negligence in the driving of a motor vehicle by a specific driver, whereupon the fund may accept liability, absolve the errant driver and compensate the claimant. This is done on a fair and balanced scale, where the driver would have been reasonably negligent, a level of fault acceptable within the normal premises of driving on a public road. However, it has been established that some drivers act with gross recklessness on the road and are in dereliction of all responsibility, to the detriment of those they may cripple or even kill in traffic. This is unacceptable and the law allows the fund to recover all compensation costs, incurred due to such recklessness, as defined in the MVA Act of 2011, as amended, under Section 17 paragraphs (a)–(f).
… recklessness not acceptable on the road
Some people are concerned about why SMVAF recovers money from an errant driver after compensating the victim. The argument is that the fuel levy should cater for such cases. The truth of the matter is that the fuel levy covers negligence, not recklessness.
Any driver, for instance, who ventures onto the road while unlicensed and causes an accident is liable to repay the fund for any amount spent on compensating the claimant.
There is a plethora of scenarios involving utter irresponsibility that motorists dangerously engage in, endangering their own safety, that of their passengers and other road users outside the confines of their vehicles. These include excessive speeding in controlled areas such as school zones or driving under the influence of alcohol and causing an accident as a result.
Everyone has a right to life while on the road
Road users have suffered atrocious injuries due to reckless behaviour on public roads. Numerous stories have been heard of motorists who engage in drag racing or spinning on public roads, lose control and kill innocent bystanders an unnecessary and irresponsible act that should never occur on public roads.
Others have experienced the pain of losing school-going children who were killed on zebra crossings by reckless and inconsiderate drivers travelling at speeds such as 160km/h, despite clear road markings, signage and the visible presence of pupils. Such irresponsible drivers have no right to claim that paying a fuel levy entitles them to endanger or take another person’s life on the road.
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