Shoddy contractors in KwaZulu-Natal are to cost taxpayers R500-million - for rebuilding thousands of RDP houses, many of which have to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch because of inferior workmanship.
Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale yesterday read the riot act to "fly-by-night" contractors, lawyers, estate agents and crooked civil servants, saying they would be named and shamed.
Sexwale wants to sue these shoddy contractors who have built sub-standard housing on government tenders, and to force others to finish housing projects they have abandoned.
He announced a national housing audit aimed at uncovering corruption, fraud and housing delivery blockages.
At least 3 000 RDP houses in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape - completed only 18 months ago - would have to be demolished because they were in ruins, Sexwale said.
"R300 million plus has been budgeted just to rectify homes in the Eastern Cape and in KZN, close to R500 million.
"We have budgets for these things, but I'd rather have budgets to build new houses than close to a billion to rectify shoddy workmanship, where people have been taking chances exploiting public money," the minister said.
He told reporters at a briefing in Pretoria that 800 civil servants had been caught "with their hands in the cookie jar" - benefiting from subsidies meant for the poor.
The Special Investigations Unit, under Willie Hofmeyr, had already recovered R20 million from public servants who had "illegally" benefited from subsidies.
"We are dealing with public money (and) heads are going to roll.
"There are rotten people who have taken advantage of the public sector and they don't know how to make money and that way public finances get squandered," Sexwale said.
Hofmeyr's unit would conduct the audit, with the support of the Auditor-General's office, all provincial government departments, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements in Parliament.
Sexwale also took aim at "fly-by-night" lawyers and estate agents who he said "tricked" people who had received RDP houses, to sell them for as little as R3 000, when they cost R60 000 to erect, and despite it being illegal for beneficiaries to sell RDP houses within eight years of receiving them.
"We want to prevent that and maybe (the) time (prohibiting re-sale) has to be lengthened. The audit has got to deal with the illegal sale of houses to deal with these fly-by-night estate agents and teams of lawyers that are all over the poor to trick them into actualising and materialising these assets before their deadlines.
"There's a whole market that has opened up out there including lawyers, real estate agencies just picking on the poor and making sure that they buy these houses as cheaply as possible and sell them back in the market," Sexwale said.
He said the department would have to "re-think" its housing delivery model, as most of the 27 000 calls made to the Presidential Hotline in the first weeks of its operation had been complaints about housing delivery.
The audit would focus on fraud, corruption, absentee contractors, unfinished "ghost" houses, and corruption related to housing waiting lists.
Sexwale said the audit would help the department see whether contractors deserved to be black-listed from doing any business with government or sued to recoup the monies.
"We can't have a situation where we keep on pointing at these houses... wherever I go people (say) 'Mr Sexwale this house is cracking and it was built six months ago, three months ago'," Sexwale said.
The department wanted the R15 billion allocated for housing this year to be used correctly.
"We will also undertake the naming and shaming of the persons involved both inside government, at whatever level they operate, and in the private sector.
"It will give us clear guidelines on measures to be taken, including blacklisting and prosecution, to prevent and curb malpractices in the procurement and awarding of tenders," Sexwale said.
"We've come face to face with serious problems of people who have been on housing queues for very many years.
"One could understand why some of our people, at the drop of a hat, (within) six months (of the elections) find themselves sometimes wrongly organising violent service delivery demonstrations. We must condemn that but we now know why people find themselves in that problem," Sexwale said.