As the country prepares for accelerated housing delivery to eradicate shacks, parliament has departed from tradition to call together all those passing the buck in housing subsidy graft.
Its standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) decided after a report from the auditor-general (AG) to call the national department and provincial housing authorities to a joint hearing to explain why more than R300-million has been lost to corruption.
… “The AG’s audit provides disturbing reading because it calls into question the number of houses built since 1994,” Themba Godi, Scopa’s chairperson, told Independent Newspapers.
“The report talks about double payments to the same application and this constitutes a very high percentage at a time when we are trying to half the number of those living in shacks.”…
The government has committed itself to the millennium goal of halving the number of those squatting, and Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, is implementing new plans to increase the number of units being built .
But the AG’s report on the approval and allocation of housing subsidies showed that a total of 53 426 out of 1,4 million subsidies were irregularly or fraudulently granted between 1994 and 2004. Of this, duplicate subsidies paid on the same property accounted for nearly half of the irregularities.
Duplicate payments to the same individual or household accounted for seven percent of irregularities while fraudulent payments to government employees accounted for 14 percent of irregularities. In total, R323 million of taxpayers’ money has been lost.
Although each province has its own public accounts committee, the housing budget and housing subsidies are voted by parliament in the national budget, which provides Scopa with a window of oversight over provinces’ use of the money.
Scopa has never before flexed its muscle to include both spheres of government in a joint grilling. - Sunday Independent
Its standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) decided after a report from the auditor-general (AG) to call the national department and provincial housing authorities to a joint hearing to explain why more than R300-million has been lost to corruption.
… “The AG’s audit provides disturbing reading because it calls into question the number of houses built since 1994,” Themba Godi, Scopa’s chairperson, told Independent Newspapers.
“The report talks about double payments to the same application and this constitutes a very high percentage at a time when we are trying to half the number of those living in shacks.”…
The government has committed itself to the millennium goal of halving the number of those squatting, and Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, is implementing new plans to increase the number of units being built .
But the AG’s report on the approval and allocation of housing subsidies showed that a total of 53 426 out of 1,4 million subsidies were irregularly or fraudulently granted between 1994 and 2004. Of this, duplicate subsidies paid on the same property accounted for nearly half of the irregularities.
Duplicate payments to the same individual or household accounted for seven percent of irregularities while fraudulent payments to government employees accounted for 14 percent of irregularities. In total, R323 million of taxpayers’ money has been lost.
Although each province has its own public accounts committee, the housing budget and housing subsidies are voted by parliament in the national budget, which provides Scopa with a window of oversight over provinces’ use of the money.
Scopa has never before flexed its muscle to include both spheres of government in a joint grilling. - Sunday Independent
