Pretoria — Talks between the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the national Department of Housing have advanced to crack down on corrupt elements within the department.

In July, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said she would ask the unit to probe sleaze within the department, after the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) criticised officials for poorly administering housing subsidies.

Auditor-General Shauket Fakie had found that of the more than R2.5 billion handed out since the beginning of the scheme in 1994, more than R300 million had been paid out irregularly.

Deputy Head of the SIU Faiek Davids told the media on Thursday, the unit had started recruiting more people in anticipation of the investigation, which is expected to spread nationwide.

He said, in agreement with some provinces, the unit would investigate corruption in low cost housing schemes, among others.

"In Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal we will be looking at among others fictitious applications, corruption committed by conveyancers as well as the lack of houses being built whereas payment has been made," explained Mr Davids.

Head of the SIU, Willie Hofmeyer, briefed the media about the progress they were making in investigating corruption in the country.

He also presented significant successes the unit had recorded in the past five years in fighting fraud, corruption and maladministration within the public sector.

These included fraudulent social grant beneficiaries and the issuing of drivers' licences and a number of investigations within the Department of Correctional Services.

This resulted since 2001, in cash recoveries worth R79 million, prevention of future losses estimated at R6.7 billion and a saving of about R852 million of taxpayers' money this current financial year.

The prevented future financial losses were mainly within the Department of Social Development's social grants system and the Department of Correctional Services' medical aid fund.

Mr Hofmeyer said about 43 705 government officials were identified as social grant recipients and it emerged that 21 588 of them had irregularly registered while 22 117 were entitled to benefit - as they worked for government part-time.

He said a total of 15 982 civil servants were subsequently removed from the database, detailing a yearly value of cancelled pensions to R51 million.

At least 13 920 possible prosecutions were imminent on implicated public servants.

"A total of 1999 prosecutions were made by the beginning of September. At least 1 365 have been finalised and of those we have made 1 221 convictions," he said.

Mr Hofmeyer said the officials were charged with fraud for receiving benefits they were not entitled to.

In this regard, the officials faced prison sentences of up to three years, fines between R500 to R70 000 and suspended imprisonment as well as fully suspended sentences.

In the Department of Correctional Services, he said they embarked on a long investigation focusing on visits to correctional centres, medical aid and procurement irregularities.

"We are currently investigating six major procurement contracts".

These include, the repair and maintenance contract at Klerksdorp whose amount inflated from the original R56 million to R112 million and another of an information technology database from R4 million to R14 million, among others.

Mr Hofmeyer said the joint investigation with the police and the Directorate of Special Operations into corruption within the department recovered about R22 million to date.

"Expenditure on medical aid is down nearly 50 percent from where it would have been with normal medical inflation. Prevented losses amount to R3.4 billion," he said, adding that 26 medical practitioners were criminally charged in this regard.

Regarding the Department of Transport, he said 924 176 files had been scanned from 204 Driver's Licence Tensing Centres between March 2005 and August this year and 388 094 had already been audited.

As a result, 24 243 invalid licences - including foreign conversions - were identified and the unit had already recommended the cancellations of 6 699 such permits.

"Five hundred-and-ninety-nine have been cancelled to date nationally. In this regard 2 998 criminal cases are under investigation, 598 people [38 officials and 560 private citizens] have already been arrested and 350 convictions made," said Mr Hofmeyer.