A sample survey conducted last year by the Auditor-General revealed that during the ten months between March 2004 and January 2005 as much as R300-million had been paid in housing subsidies to 50 000 fraudulent beneficiaries across the nine provinces. I have no doubt that this was merely the tip of the iceberg. 

It was also revealed that more than 25 000 duplicate subsidies – that is more than one subsidy to the same applicant – had been approved. As many as 6 000 subsidies had been granted to applicants younger than 21, which, at the time, was against the regulations. 

If this is not a monumental and cynical waste of the taxpayers’ money, then I do not know what is! 

And this is not even the whole picture. In five provinces alone since 1994, a total of 2 554 people died while waiting for their housing subsidies to be approved. Apparently thousands of legitimate applicants do not live long enough to see their housing subsidies approved while thousands more are granted the same subsidies on fraudulent grounds. 

South Africa and KwaZulu Natal, in particular, face distressing numbers of individuals and indeed entire communities that genuinely need government assistance in the form of housing subsidies. At the same time, the province and the country share a responsible bureaucracy riddled with fraud and corruption.   

Just how the promise of a million houses in five years, made back in 1994 by the ruling party, could ever be kept amid such shambolic circumstances as there are in the national and provincial departments of housing, I cannot begin to imagine. 

The IFP will urge the government at all levels to re-think the current administration of housing subsidies in the light of both the ongoing fraud and the legitimate need for housing among the most deprived communities. The department of housing cannot house more chaos!

Dr Lionel Mtshali MPP
Leader of the Official Opposition

Contact: Dr Lionel Mtshali, 083 256 4902