Monday, March 06, 2006

HouseIT?-) Housing Subsidy Scams

Housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu has appointed a committee to urgently examine the findings of an auditor-general’s report that found R323m worth of irregular housing subsidies were approved by provincial housing departments between 1995 and 2004.

About 3.6% of the 1.4 million individual housing subsidies approved in this period involving 53,426 beneficiaries were found to be irregular.

(The national average of 5 citizens per house means 266,000 people are affected by this)

The report identifies a number of different kinds of irregularities. Some subsidies had been granted to employees earning over the annual salary subsidy threshold, some beneficiaries had died or were under 21, and some subsidies were paid to the same applicant or household more than once.

There are thousands of cases of duplicate subsidies awarded for the same property.

Saturday Weekend Argus 04 March 2006

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