HOUSES built by the Niall Mellon Township Trust for some of Cape Town's poorerst citizens are being rented out for huge sums to business people and immigrants, the Sunday Tribune has learned.

According to local reports, some houses built by Irish volunteers in 2005 in the township of Imizamo Yethu have been rented out to third parties from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and even China for 2,000 rand a month (around 200).

The houses are then used for businesses or rented out again, with one resident alleging that up to 20 people are living in one house in desperate conditions.

At a public meeting earlier this month in Hangberg near Cape Town, which was attended by Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille and some of her senior officials, community member Chedreck Makeleni asked city council officials to intervene.

"It makes me so angry when I see what's going on in Imizamo Yethu, " he is reported to have said.

"When the Niall Mellon houses were first built the area was transformed.

New brick houses, it was beautiful.

Now most of those pretty houses are hidden by the shacks that have sprung up around them." These shacks house the Capetonians for whom the Niall Mellon homes were originally built.

Roger Carney, a senior official in Human Settlement Services in Cape Town, confirmed to this newspaper that some of the Niall Mellon houses were being passed on to third parties with the original beneficiaries living off the rent. "There are some incidents of that, " he said. "It's not only the Niall Mellon houses, it happens all over the country."

Carney admitted that there was a huge temptation to rent out a house or a room within a house considering the relatively massive rents that can be earned. Although 200 a month may seem like a small sum, the average wage of a farm worker in South Africa is less than 50 a month. Many of those living in townships are unemployed and receive no state benefits.

"We give housing to the poorest of the poor, " Carney said. "If I didn't have an income of any sort, and was given the asset of a house, I would certainly think of moving out and renting it to have an income all of a sudden."

Imizamo Yethu is located in the affluent Cape Town suburb of Hout Bay. The stark contrast between the awful conditions in this township and the surrounding mansions originally inspired Mellon to establish his charity in 2002.

In 2003, it was the first township tackled by the building initiative when 150 volunteers travelled from Ireland to build 25 houses in tough conditions.

Since then, Mellon has continued to fund building projects in the area although the residents of Hout Bay have taken out an injunction preventing him from freeing up nearby land to build houses for township residents.

The Sunday Tribune made several efforts to contact the Niall Mellon Township Trust in South Africa, but did not receive a response.