http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=20559
Officials in housing fraud of R26 million
11 Mar 2009
Sapa
JOHANNESBURG — The national Housing Department had been cheated out of at least R26 million by state employees who obtained housing subsidies fraudulently, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) said yesterday.
Another 2 150 government employees are still under investigation for possible fraud, said SIU deputy head Faiek Davids.
He was briefing the media in Johannesburg on a broad forensic probe into housing corruption, which he said would run into 2012 and would also look at nepotism, fraud and corruption in tender processes.
SIU investigations over the past two years have exposed 1 962 government employees who received subsidies they were not entitled to, said Davids.
“The fraudulent ones are valued at approximately R26 million,” he told reporters.
Housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said the department is considering seizing the properties bought with the subsidies. “It depends whether it is legally feasible or practical to do that. We will look at it in a case-by-case situation. It is the intent of government to get those houses back,” he said.
Davids said SIU investigations showed that another 223 subsidy beneficiaries received “over-payments” valued at R2,4 million.
The investigations started after a 2006 report by the Auditor General which “red-flagged” 53 426 potentially irregular housing subsidy instances between 1994 and 2004. A total of 1,4 million subsidies were handed out over that period.
The 53 426 cases included duplicate subsidies on properties, duplicate subsidies for individuals, applications approved after death (of which there were 5 335) and applications approved with invalid identity documents. But, said Davids, the SIU decided to focus on 7 353 government employees identified by the Auditor General as possibly having obtained housing subsidies fraudulently.
To date, the SIU has investigated 3 954 of them, and irregularities were spotted in just over half of the cases.
Most of these employees had secured subsidies fraudulently by under-declaring their household income. Only households earning around R40 000 a year qualify for subsidies, he said.
The SIU investigations have so far resulted in 724 prosecutions — with an 80% conviction rate — and 634 disciplinary cases.
They have also resulted in 1 330 employees signing pay-back agreements, which will ultimately help the department recover about R18 million.
“Twenty-five percent of that [R18 million] has been recovered,” said Davids.
Once the probe into fraudulent subsidies is complete, the SIU will start investigating housing contract irregularities.