Officials caught in massive housing subsidy corruption
Cape Town – The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has uncovered wide-scale corruption among government officials involved in the awarding of housing subsidies, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu told MPs yesterday.
“The SIU ... identified 31259 potentially irregular housing subsidy transactions awarded to government employees,” she said before debate on her department‘s budget vote. “(A total of) 29 cases have already been finalised, with sentences including the payment of the value of the houses. The total amount of debt we expect to recover is R6827036. A cash amount of R1103772 has been paid back ... It is envisaged that 200 cases will be placed on the court roll in the new financial year.”
Regulations and procedures governing the allocation of state-built houses would be tightened to ensure they were occupied by “indigent South African citizens who meet the qualification criteria and are on our waiting lists”. There was a perception such homes were being given to foreigners by councillors, but an audit by the auditor-general last year had not found a single incident.
“However, as we all know, it is true that some of our houses are occupied by foreign nationals. This can only mean our people ... have either sold them before the period of limitation has elapsed, or are renting them out.”
For this reason, “occupancy audits” would be conducted to establish if the original beneficiaries still lived in them.
“We have been very concerned about the incidence of the sale of our houses. Our laws prohibit this. As an urgent measure, we have decided to enlist the services of the (SIU) to take action.”
She said “compulsory adherence” to the national housing demand database now prevented any municipality from making allocations outside of it.
Sisulu said the state had provided 2,6 million houses for 13 million people since 1994, but a once-off R12- million in additional funds was needed to clear the backlog of 2,1 million units. – Sapa