SABC executive Hlaudi Motsoeneng and Fikile Mbalula’s wife, Nozuko, no longer face legal action over millions which were paid to them in an alleged fraudulent housing scheme run by the Free State government.

According to a report by the Sunday Times, the Free State government has backtracked on its plans to sue contractors involved in the scheme during 2010 and 2011.

The legal action was intended to recover over R600 million for the upfront payment for 14,000 RDP houses.

A government official said they were going to recover money paid to material suppliers, not the contractors.

“The official said Motsoeneng and Mbalula would not be sued for money paid to them for 450 houses they were to build in Bloemfontein and Virginia,” stated the report.

Court papers show that Motsoeneng and Mbalula, as trustees of the Imbuma Trust and MM Development Trust, received millions between 2010 and 2011 to build 450 low-cost houses – none of which were ever built.

The provincial department of human settlements would not detail how the trusts qualified for the housing project.

According to previous reports, the payments were made because allocated funds were not being spent by the Free State and there was the threat of them being moved to other provinces.

The province had spent 10% of the R1.3 billion allocated by the National Treasury for RDP houses at the time.

The full report is in the Sunday Times of 29 January 2017.