Joburg housing scams: Multiple syndicates working closely with corrupt officials

Along with a housing backlog estimated to be between 460 000 to 480 000 homes, the City of Joburg is also battling with housing scams.

Joburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse said yesterday there was a great concern with the possible involvement of officials from the department of human settlements in the scams.

“It is becoming clear we are dealing with multiple syndicates, who might be working closely with human settlement officials,” she said Phalatse encouraged victims to open cases of fraud at their local police station.

She urged citizens to be vigilant and to scrutinise all information relating to housing, and that communications on housing could only come from the department’s website or official social media channels.

“We are extremely concerned but the Group Forensics Investigation Services (GFIS) is on top of these investigations,” she said.

According to Phalatse, this was not only happening in the housing department but was also picked up in public safety.

“We have had dismissals of some JMPD [Joburg Metro Police Department] officials. We are rooting out all the lands of criminality within the City of Joburg.”

Phalatse said criminals were only outsmarting the system because there were accomplices on the inside.

“This is why we are serious about capacitating the GFIS and our acting head is filling director positions which were vacant. This is to ensure we are really cleaning and rooting out corruption in every corner of the city,” she said.

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While Phalatse stressed the application for Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses and their allocation was free of charge to qualifying residents, the issue of housing backlogs still stood.

She said the city relied on funding from the national and provincial departments to roll out housing projects.

“We do what we can with what we get,” she said. The multiparty government would be upgrading 10 informal settlements in the current financial year and had further identified another 20.

“We need to find the money to do those as well,” Phalatse said.

“There are various projects we are rolling out with the few resources while we look at more cost-effective solutions and how to attract funding from the National Treasury.

“We are even looking at private-public partnerships as potential solutions because we want to see our economy grow, see people in jobs and for people to build their own houses.”

Asked about the number of people in distress being scammed, acting group head of the GFIS Lizzie Ramogale said they were still gathering information as there were a number of syndicates which were operating.

It is understood scammers sell flats and RDP houses for as little as R15 000 to R25 000 and charge around R2 500 to jump the housing beneficiaries queue.

“We do not exactly know how many they are as the matter is still under investigation. Once we establish with the police then we will be able to identify,” Ramogale said.

“At the moment, it is only two we have identified, but it could be more. We do not really know who they are, perhaps it’s South African citizens or foreign nationals, we are yet to confirm.”

Ramogale added this brought severe impact on the housing list because it caused mismanagement. She said some of the people placed on the list had fraudulent identity documents.

“On the list we have reserved, some of their ages ranged between 18 and 30. It cannot be unless they are beneficiaries. It does not make sense,” she said.

Joburg MMC for human settlements Mlungisi Mabaso said the department recognised the severity of the housing backlog and acknowledged people died waiting for houses. He said the city would hold a housing indaba to determine alternatives for building homes because “brick and mortar housing takes too long”.

Mabaso added an official involved in the scams was arrested last year and the department was still investigating to see if other employees were involved.

“There’s something wrong. Someone in the department knows what’s happening,” he said.

– lungas@citizen.co.za