Fraud and corruption in the provision of housing has cost taxpayers R126 million, according to a preliminary report on a forensic audit.

Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, who released the findings of a forensic audit into corruption yesterday, handed over two boxes of dossiers detailing rampant corruption in the housing sector to the National Director for Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka.

The audit, carried out by a members (sic) of Gobodo Forensic Investigators, senior legal advisers, auditors and officials from the housing department, found that corruption and maladministration were rife.

It established that of the 100 priority cases handed to the Scorpions for investigation, 25 involved fraud and 13 corruption, while the rest related to maladministration.

In one case, a former chairman of the KwaZulu Natal Housing Board siphoned R53m into a personal investment account with brokers Shepstone and Wylie. Because the man has since died, no action will be taken.

Shepstone and Wylie repaid the money a month after Mthembi-Mahanyele announced an investigation into corruption in the housing sector.

The investigation had led to arrests, the minister said.

These included :

A person in Limpopo who made residents of Lebowakgomo pay for houses that were free.

• Two people from Polokwane, Limpopo, who posed as housing officials and sold RDP houses; another changed locks so the people entitled to the houses could not get in.

Mthembi-Mahanyele said some officials and civic leaders had also demanded that women have sex with them before they could have low-cost houses.

With acknowledgements to Makhudu Sefara and Cape Times.