The government has come down hard on corrupt public servants by arresting and disciplining 3961 of them for benefiting fraudulently from RDP houses.
Human Settlements Minister Connie September revealed yesterday that 2236 officials were arrested and convicted for acquiring RDP houses fraudulently.
She said her department had referred 1725 cases against officials to provincial departments for disciplinary action.
September, who was replying to a written Parliamentary question from the IFP, said they had referred some of the cases for disciplinary action against the officials concerned.
She said about 2236 public servants were arrested and convicted for illegally acquiring RDP houses meant for the poor. This was twice the number of officials arrested and convicted of the offence early last year, when the department announced progress in investigations into the construction of shoddy houses by private companies.
September said in her written reply provincial departments of human settlements were sitting with 1725 cases of individual officials involved in defrauding the system.
“The national department is awaiting a progress report on these cases,” September said. The minister also revealed that some of the companies involved in shoddy workmanship had been blacklisted.
“Investigations into housing contracts, which include shoddy workmanship, are multi-year projects and the determination of how much was lost could only be made once the investigation is completed,” she said.
Three years ago then minister of human settlements Tokyo Sexwale said it would cost the state more than R2bn to fix shoddy houses. He had said construction companies involved in building poor structures would be blacklisted.
The national Treasury blacklists companies involved in defrauding the state.
Most of these badly built houses were in the Eastern Cape, Sexwale had said.
There were 134000 RDP that required repairs or had to be rebuilt from scratch, the department said.
The department’s director-general Thabane Zulu said in February last year the Special Investigating Unit had been roped in to help with the probe into the matter.
The unit was looking into several housing contracts.
He had warned that contractors responsible for the shoddy construction of houses would be prosecuted and the state would recover the money for the projects.
At the time Zulu said 1061 civil servants had been arrested for defrauding the system between 2010 and last year. Out of the 1061 officials only 1002 were convicted.
The government had promised tough action against people and companies involved in poor housing construction.
Public Protector Thuli Madonsela was also conducting her own investigation into the matter. - TNA
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