Johannesburg - Steps were being taken to rectify badly-built RDP houses and to hold responsible parties accountable, the department of human settlements said on Wednesday.
Human settlements director-general Thabane Zulu said the department would soon introduce a house rectification programme to deal with defective houses built from 2002.
He said the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) was also conducting investigations into several housing contracts, and that scores of people had already been convicted.
"Contractors who were responsible for this shoddy workmanship are currently being prosecuted and public monies being recovered," said Zulu.
"On the issue of public servants from various national, provincial and local municipalities who fraudulently benefited from [the] government housing programme, the department revealed that 1 061 such officials were prosecuted between 2010 and 2012," he said.
Of these, 1002 had been convicted.
Zulu was responding to a call from Public Protector
Thuli Madonsela for feedback from the department about its progress in dealing with problems with RDP houses.
Madonsela's office is conducting its own investigation into the matter.
Zulu told the portfolio committee on housing that investigations had revealed that RDP housing problems included the allocation of houses.
She said there were also issues of procurement irregularities, including corruption and fraud, and post-allocation problems, including missing title deeds and the illegal sale of RDP houses.
Zulu said the department was working on setting up a project management unit to help fix the problems.
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