I wish I could understand the many “secret societies” that seem to exist around us.

Societies that have been forged on corruption, chance-taking and getting rich by any possible means. I am not party to them now – I never have been – and because of that I don’t have intimate details of how they function either.

And, because they are pretty secretive, I’m never taken into the inner sanctums either.

What am I talking about? Well here’s a bit of background.

First of all, our Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, has announced that he and his team intend to conduct a comprehensive audit of houses that have been handed over to the poor and indigent members of our society.

I immediately found that a little odd because surely the Department knows who got these houses? They gave them away – along with title deeds – to a named person who is precluded from selling the property for a period of at least eight years. So surely they know who owns them.

However, there appears to be a rather secretive network operating within these development areas where the houses are handed over to one person and then “sold” to others. The sale itself is not recorded so the title deeds are never altered.

It’s an “informal sale”, which, in the eyes of the law is completely meaningless because the new “owner” never actually has his or her name recorded on the title deeds and therefore the original holder of the title deed remains the legal (if not the rightful) owner.

In the interim, the new “owner” pays money to the title deed holder in return for living in the new house. Of course, anyone with a brain will recognise that the people who are occupying the house are actually tenants not owners. However, there appears to be some informal agreement between the legal owner and the “new owner” that allows this sort of transaction to take place.

Now Sexwale’s problem is manifest:

- Firstly, he doesn’t have a clue if the occupant of the house is actually the owner or if it is an “informal owner”;

- Secondly, there is no record of the transactions that may have taken place without the deeds office being involved;

- Thirdly, there is no record of what has happened since the house was handed over to the owner by the Department of Human Settlements (within the last year or so) or by the former Department of Housing that was run by Dr Lindiwe Sisulu, now the Minister of Defence.

So I can understand why he and his team need to do an audit. And there are more than two million houses that have been handed over since 1994 when a huge low-income housing campaign began.

Apart from having to build new houses, he has to now track down what has happened to the houses that have been built.

Clearly, once again, the evils of a quick buck with an eye to getting money rather than a house have seemed to dominate some peoples thinking.

At the same time, an exposure in the Deeds Office has now unearthed that a further 30 and probably more land transactions have been fraudulently registered there. Instead of just 33 land transactions relating to the Johannesburg Property Company there are more than 63 fraudulent transactions that have taken place and many more being unearthed as the party days of our World Cup euphoria drag by.

Once again, a “secret society” comprised of people with “contacts” has clearly been operating within the Deeds Office, allowing certain transactions to be dutifully recorded without any real questions being asked.

This sort of corruption is believed to be extremely widespread and the belief is based on small bits of information that seem to be rather innocuous. Vehicles being fraudulently registered and then resold (car dealers, some reputable, are involved along with the banks who approve the financial transactions).

Land claims that are smokkelled through the provincial and municipal offices such as the mess that unveiled itself at the Mbombela Stadium outside Nelspruit.

The allegedly fraudulent land claims transactions in KwaZulu Natal, in the Eastern and Western Cape and, of course in Gauteng, the North West Province and Mpumalanga.

All of these operations are based on “secret societies” where people have the “right contacts” in the “right place” to do the “right deed” that benefits only the few parties to these secrets.

What astonishes me all the time is just how widespread this kind of corruption is. Take the illegal importation of drugs, contraband, counterfeit goods, counterfeit currencies. The list just goes on and on.

Sadly, what strikes me too is that perhaps it is these very “secret societies” that are creating huge bands of nouveau riche in our community. All the way round, people are benefitting from the corruption that is endemic in our society. And, each time, it means that somebody has somewhere set up the means to transact in highly illegal ways.

Even the South African Police Service has not been excluded from this kind of “secret society” where, if you know the right person and you are part of that bond, you will have your case docket mysteriously disappear ensuring that charges laid can never be tested in court.

What are we going to do about this?

I do think that the only hope is to have much greater activity among the anonymous tip-off lines that exist for just about every branch of our society whether it is through the Primedia initiative of Crime Line or if it is through the individual tip-off lines that exist in every major company in South Africa.

I reckon that Tokyo and his team should surely get there eyes and ears out into the community and bring an end to this kind of illicit trade in the houses that have been given away to the poor. Just as I think that everybody should insist that there is a paper trail attached to every property deal recorded through the Deeds Office.

Just as I believe that corrupt attorneys (with secretaries who do the typing for them) should be exposed by these very secretaries themselves. And so the list could go on until we bring this pack of cards (called corruption) tumbling down around every participant’s feet.

If South Africa needs one thing it is to clean up the corruption that is so endemic in our society. And to achieve this people, like you and me, must stand up and be counted.

Get onto the phone and report the crooks – regardless of what damage you think it might do. One accurate tip-off can bring a whole pack of cards tumbling down.

So do it – and do it now – because all of us are losing out in the current circumstances.

*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn’t pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at paddy@neomail.co.za.

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Hm, announcing now with great fanfare an investigation into apparently suspicious dealings between rightful property owners and possible third parties?

Why was there morbid silence from the Minister and Departmental managers when THOUSANDS of Home Affairs employees themselves were apparently caught stealing houses from the rightful owners?! What has become of that whole lot, if anything?

A case of wag the dog, methinks. – Anonymous