Exploiting housing expectations

South Africans are proud that they have one of the biggest housing programmes in the world — a commendable effort to provide suitable and affordable housing to millions of poor people, thus giving concrete expression to the ideals of the Freedom Charter and the Constitution. The government says it has built 3.1-million houses for 10-million people since 1994, the majority being owned by women.

Housing also remains one of the government’s spending priorities as former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel again asserted in his Budget Speech in February. Manuel announced the allocation of R67-billion on infrastructure grants to municipalities; R45-billion over three years to the Department of Housing’s Breaking New Ground (BNG) programme; and R1.5-billion to the integrated housing and human settlement grant to provinces.

Housing programme plagued by controversy

Yet, sadly, South Africa’s housing programme remains plagued by controversy, fraud, corruption, exploitation and abuse. And the very people who are meant to benefit, often end up being victims. South Africa’s housing policy started taking shape even before the democratic elections of 1994 when a multi-party, non-governmental negotiating body known as the National Housing Forum was formed. This lay the foundations of the later national housing policy, leading first to the Housing Accord, which produced the 1994 White Paper on Housing, which in turn formed the basis of the housing policy of the government of national unity under President Nelson Mandela.

With the best intentions in the world, the National Housing Accord was signed in 1994 by a range of stakeholders representing the homeless, the government, communities and civil society, the financial sector, emerging contractors, the established construction industry, building material suppliers, employers, developers and the international community. All policies, programmes and guidelines that followed fell within the framework set out initially in the White Paper.

After several false starts and midstream changes of direction since 1994, Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu in September 2004 presented the cabinet with a comprehensive, revised sustainable housing plan, the BNG programme. The BNG’s prime objective is the eradication or upgrading of all informal settlements in the country by 2014/15. The Housing Act compels all three spheres of government to prioritise the needs of the poor with respect to housing development.

In addition, all three spheres of government must ensure that housing development:

• Provides as wide a choice of housing and tenure options as is reasonably possible;

• Is economically, fiscally, socially and financially affordable and sustainable;

• Is based on integrated development planning; and

• Is administered in a transparent, accountable and equitable manner, and upholds the practice of good governance.

Almost every one of these noble ideals has been undermined by unscrupulous people

And therein lies the rub — for almost every one of these noble ideals has been undermined by unscrupulous people; from government officials to builders and developers, from homeowners to fraudsters and others. So great has the problem become that the Department of Housing’s director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane paid specific attention to it in the department’s last annual report, referring to shortcomings identified by the auditor-general in the administration of housing subsidies by provincial departments and attempts to combat fraud and corruption.

"The establishment of the Special Investigating Unit has rendered positive results," said Kotsoane. "During this year we have seen more provincial departments capacitating and operationalising similar units and as a result it was possible to establish an inter-governmental anti-corruption forum to facilitate a co-ordinated approach to rooting out corruption. While, on the one hand, we have been able to secure more funding to address corruption, there has also been progress in working closer with law enforcement agencies."

The problem goes far back. Already in 2002 the then housing minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele appointed a task team to investigate corruption, fraud and maladministration in the housing subsidy scheme and was shocked by its findings. A few months later, the new housing minister Brigitte Mabandla also referred to the problem when she welcomed the increase in the number of arrests of provincial housing officials suspected of involvement in fraudulent or other malpractices related to housing.

Mabandla said the growing number of arrests at the time showed that her department was winning the war against corruption, but that measures to fight corruption would nonetheless be intensified. However, as upbeat as the minister might have been about succeeding in the fight to root out the exploitation and corruption in the reconstruction and development (RDP) housing programme, the rot continued.

In 2004, when tabling her department’s Budget vote in Parliament, the housing minister again had to deal at length with the problem. She announced the department had appointed auditing firm KPMG as a second task team to support the work of the first in the elimination of fraud, corruption and maladministration.

During her department’s Budget vote in Parliament last year, Sisulu referred to the problem of illegal allocation of houses to non-qualifying foreigners (brought up as one of the reasons for the xenophobic attacks on foreigners). She said that an audit by the auditor-general failed to uncover such cases, adding, "We all know it is true that some of our houses are occupied by foreign nationals. This could only mean that our people — the beneficiaries of these houses — have either sold them before the period of limitation has elapsed or are renting them out". She gave the assurance that her department had tightened its regulations to end the abuse.

The exploitation and abuses take many forms, for example:

Owners of RDP houses selling their houses illegally before the limitation period has expired;

Abuse of rewarding criteria and waiting lists by corrupt officials who illegally allocate houses upon receiving bribe payments;

Illegal allocation of houses to foreigners, allegedly by officials accepting bribes (last year the Democratic Alliance compiled a list of beneficiaries said to be foreign nationals who were allocated RDP houses in Alexandra);

Local authorities frequently fail to take action against corrupt officials where abuses have been pointed out. In 2005, fed-up residents and members of the Greater Musina Unemployment Forum marched to the local municipal offices to protest the lack of action against councillors accused of renting out, or selling, RDP houses to foreigners;

Developers paying corrupt officials to approve shoddy building work or the use of cheap, inferior building materials in constructing RDP houses on lucrative government contracts, as is detailed in one housing department document;

Government officials in all departments claiming they are unemployed or earn less than the qualifying minimum income in order to fraudulently have RDP houses awarded to them. Last year, in a mere week, 29 such cases involving nurses, teachers and school principals were brought to court in KwaZulu-Natal;

Government officials falsely claiming housing subsidies or manipulating computer systems to receive more than one housing subsidy. In 2006, more than 2100 officials of the Gauteng housing and local government department were implicated in fraud of more than R133-million related to the allocation of housing subsidies;

In another case, more than R25-million was lost after 1708 applications for housing subsidies were allocated to people who were already dead, according to the Department of Home Affairs;

Developers claiming money from the government for building non-existent houses. In November 2004, three prominent Eastern Cape businessmen appeared in the Alice magistrate’s court in one such case;

Corrupt officials selling plots to RDP housing hopefuls that have already been sold to other buyers. In 2007, a senior official responsible for housing in Johannesburg was arrested for allegedly selling stands that had already been allocated for R1000 each;

Illegal occupation of RDP houses by people not entitled to them, sometimes with the aid of corrupt local councillors, politicians or government officials;

Corrupt officials illegally selling state land to people under the pretence that RDP houses would be built on it for them;

RDP housing building contractors using cheap materials that cause houses to collapse or develop cracks. In January last year, 36 RDP houses collapsed during heavy storms in eMzinoni township outside Bethal after builders had diluted the cement used with 20 wheelbarrows of sand instead of the recommended three wheelbarrows per bag of cement. Last year, a pregnant woman died when her RDP house collapsed in Amaotana, north of Durban; and

Fraudulent and illegal allocation of RDP house-building tenders to family, friends and associates of officials and councillors. In 2007, allegations of corruption rocked Limpopo’s Department of Local Government and Housing when an official allegedly allocated tenders worth R115-million to his peers.

The list is almost endless. But how does the government intend dealing with these abusive and exploitative practices?

For one, following the allegations made last year regarding foreigners receiving houses, Sisulu promised a tightening of the application of relevant regulations with, among other things, municipalities being forced to adhere to the national housing demand database to be monitored independently.

Sisulu also announced measures to check the practice of people selling off their RDP houses through occupancy audits to establish if the original beneficiaries of the houses still live in them. The services of the Special Investigations Unit were to be enlisted to take action against the practice.

In another measure aimed at reducing illegal and fraudulent practices, Sisulu announced that her department would be increasing its subsidised rental stock to ensure that those who do not qualify for state houses would have access to affordable rented accommodation.

In the 2006/07 annual report, the department also refers at length to its attempts, and that of the National Housing Anti-Corruption Forum (NHACF) and the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), to stamp out housing corruption. The Special Investigative Task Team (SITT), housed within the department, investigates allegations of maladministration, irregularities, fraud and corruption related to the implementation of national housing programmes.

To enhance a 'collaborative approach' and better co-ordination between the national department and the nine provincial departments, the department created the NHACF, which works closely with various law-enforcement agencies. However, the department acknowledges that its work is being hampered by capacity constraints.

- Ubuntu magazine