Unlawful plans and no oversight: SA’s building regulation failure – TimesLIVE

Reporter
Four investigations into deadly building collapses have exposed a string of weaknesses in South Africa’s construction regulatory system, from unlawful construction and inadequate inspections to lack of professional accountability, poor information-sharing and weak penalties.
The investigations in some of the incidents also found that the usage of unqualified individuals who assume construction roles, lack of professional oversight, insufficient reinforcement, poor design integrity, and blatant disregard of regulatory enforcement, were the causes of collapses.
Public works and infrastructure minister Dean Macpherson said repeated building collapses point to deeper structural issues that must be urgently reviewed to improve building safety and construction oversight.
This is as he released findings of four investigations undertaken by the Council for the Built Environment (CBE) into a series of recent building and construction collapses across South Africa.
The investigations follow serious incidents at Redcliffe in Verulam, eThekwini; Doornkop in Soweto; Ormonde in Johannesburg; and the Magnolia Development in Sea Point, Cape Town.
A five-storey building under construction at the River Range Ranch Temple site in Redcliffe, Verulam, collapsed on December 12 2025, killing five people and injuring eleven.
On December 28 2025, a two-storey portion of a residential structure in Doornkop, Soweto, collapsed, killing three members of one family and injuring three others.
On February 17 this year, temporary falsework failed at the Magnolia residential development in Sea Point, Cape Town, injuring four workers.
Part of an industrial building under construction in Ormonde, Johannesburg, collapsed on March 2, killing nine workers and injuring six.
Across the four incidents, 17 people lost their lives and 24 people were injured.
On the Redcliffe incident, Macpherson said the investigation could not conclusively determine a single technical cause because critical information either did not exist or could not be obtained.
“No complete structural drawings could be located. No responsible construction team could be identified. And no built-environment professional responsible for the design and supervision of the five-storey building could be positively identified,” he said.
He said the investigators did identify several possible technical contributors, including concerns about reinforcement, structural configuration, foundations, concrete and temporary support.
“But the clearest findings relate to the regulatory environment in which this building was constructed,” he said.
Macpherson said the five-storey building had no approved building plans, there was no construction work permit and the department of employment and labour had not been notified that construction had commenced.
Further, he said no built-environment professionals had been appointed to provide the professional services required for a project of this nature.
“This meant that a substantial multi-storey building was effectively able to rise outside the formal regulatory system. Because the necessary approvals had not been obtained, the project also did not pass through the ordinary systems of regulatory inspection and oversight.”
The investigators describe Redcliffe as “a case of ignoring the law”.
“That is the central lesson from this incident. A building of this scale should never be capable of progressing so far without the necessary approvals, professional oversight and regulatory visibility,” he said.
Regarding the Doornkop matter, Macpherson said the investigation established that the property was situated on high-risk dolomitic land.
TimesLIVE
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