Housing schemes collapse under graft
Housing schemes collapse under graft The collapse of hundreds of low cost housing projects countrywide is being blamed on fraud and corruption by developers in collusion with housing ¬department officials. As a result, the government is now spending more than R2bn to re-finance the completion of the low-cost houses that were abandoned by unscrupulous developers across the country since the dawn of democracy, says City Press. The problem has its roots in massive fraud scams by developers who colluded with some of the country’s housing department officials to siphon off millions of rands for work not done. City Press says that several documents in its possession show that developers in the nine provinces claim the non-completion of low-cost houses was caused by several problems, including unresolved land issues and delayed environmental impact assessment studies on sites earmarked for government’s low-cost houses. But a common concern among developers was the claim that the profit margin