Bloemfontein - Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane says her office has not received any complaints about a housing scandal in the Free State involving hundreds of millions of rands, which implicates former SABC Chief Operating Officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, and Sports Minister, Fikile Mbalula's wife, Nozuko.

According to court documents, the Free State Department of Human Settlements spent some R631 million on housing between 2010 and 2011, with no houses to show for it. The Department is suing the contractors, Motsoeneng and Mbalula, over the illegal payments. Motsoeneng and Mbalula allegedly received millions from the transactions as trustees of two trusts.  

Mkhwebane says her office may launch an investigation into the matter only once a complaint has been lodged. “We never received any complaints, so we can’t just conduct our own investigation and initiative when we have matters pending, which we have to investigate, unless we receive a complaint”.

Civil rights organisation, AfriForum has since laid criminal charges against the Department, suppliers and contractors allegedly involved.

The department said it cannot comment on the matter as it is currently before the courts.

The money was allegedly spent after then Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale had threatened to transfer some of the Free State's housing budget to other provinces. The Free State and three other provinces had underspent the money allocated to them.

By October 2010, the Free State had spent just 10% of the R1.3 billon allocated to it by Treasury to build RDP houses.  

Katleho Morapela/OFM News