Chairperson, hon M C Dikgale and hon members, evidence continues to emerge implicating officials who illegally benefit from the government's housing programme. In the main, two forms of illegality have been detected:
Firstly, we have officials who are benefiting from procurement or tender processes. These officials either fail to declare their interests in companies bidding for government work or they, in fact, influence the outcomes of procurement processes by favouring companies in which they have a direct interest or companies that benefit their family or friends.
There are also reported instances of moonlighting, which is illegal if permission to do remunerative work outside of government has not been requested and granted by the relevant accounting officer.
The second category of illegality manifests itself when government officials illegally take ownership of government houses meant for the underprivileged. Recent statistics provided by the Special Investigations Unit, SIU, in the Department of Human Settlements shows that more than 800 government employees who have illegally benefited from the provision of government houses have been successfully prosecuted, leading to the recovery of approximately R20 million.
Close to a thousand cases are currently going through disciplinary processes. At local government level, about 123 municipal employees have been successfully prosecuted, leading to the recovery of more than R3 million.
This demonstrates that there are hundreds of public officials who illegally benefit from the housing programme.
The Department of Human Settlements currently has additional evidence on the provision of government houses that requires further investigation. Thus it has launched a national housing audit to examine, review and analyse the chronic problems in the delivery of houses. Included in what the audit must achieve is the facilitation of criminal action; the institution of civil action; and the naming and shaming of people, both inside and outside government, who are illegally benefiting from the provision of government houses.
More importantly, this initiative will help government to uncover the extent to which companies owned by government officials and employees have illegally benefited from the provision of government houses.
Our position is very clear: corruption, irrespective of who commits it, will not be tolerated. We want to reiterate that nobody will be spared if found guilty of an offence that necessitates instituting criminal or civil action. I thank you.