Marianne Merten
A senior Western Cape government official has been suspended after a forensic audit found sacked Cape metro mayor Peter Marais’s son is unlawfully occupying a low-cost government house in Cape Town.
Grant Marais is one of 135 tenants unlawfully living in housing built for poor whites in Parow Park, northern Cape Town, in the mid-1970s.
A housing department official has been suspended and faces disciplinary and criminal proceedings in connection with Marais’s occupation of the house. At least one other senior official faces similar action. Steps are under way to evict the offenders.
Residents pay monthly rent of between R145 and R400. To qualify they must earn less than R1500 a month although this may soon be adjusted to R3500 be married and live with their children.
The audit shows that Grant Marais, who has lived in the house since late 1999, was not placed on a waiting list. He was allocated a flat although he declared his gross earnings as R4 000 well above the income limit.
The audit, ordered by Western Cape housing MEC Cecil Herandien, uncovered serious cases of maladministration in regard to the houses, including non-existent lease agreements, incomplete or forged tenants’ documents and illegal occupation by residents who own property elsewhere.
A decision to increase rentals to market levels once residents’ incomes increased above the cut-off was never implemented.
Director of the Western Cape forensic audit unit, Renay Ogle, said proposals to eliminate mismanagement include a wide-ranging review of application and allocation procedures, correcting rent collection and receipt procedures and issuing job descriptions for all staff at Parow Park.
Herandien confirmed that Marais still lived at Parow Park but vigorously denied anyone had pulled strings on his behalf. He said the suspended official, whom he declined to name, had “fraudulently completed Marais’s form”, making him 17 years old at the time of his application.
Telephone calls to the home of Grant Marais, who is listed in the telephone directory, went unanswered, as did a message left on his answering machine.
Cape Town community paper Tygertalk earlier this month quoted Peter Marais as saying that he became aware of several of his wife’s relatives by marriage living in the complex two years ago.
According to Tygertalk, Marais insisted his son had followed the “normal procedures” and that he could not exert influence on the allocation of housing, either as mayor or in his previous post as welfare and poverty relief MEC.
Tygertalk first raised concerns about irregularities at the complex in August, noting several luxury cars, caravans and boats in the parking lots.