By Thapelo Molefe
Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson says construction professionals whose misconduct contributes to deaths should face consequences beyond fines or deregistration, and that criminal charges may be necessary to stop people from cutting corners.
Macpherson made the comments on Thursday while releasing the findings of investigations into four recent building and structural incidents that claimed 17 lives and left 24 people injured.
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“People cannot die because of professional misconduct, and then you just get a fine for that,” Macpherson said.
The minister said the government was working with law enforcement to ensure evidence of misconduct was properly investigated, pointing to the George building collapse in May 2024, where 34 people died.
He said the department had provided police and investigators with evidence that could help establish whether professional misconduct and ignored warning signs contributed to the tragedy.
“We have really done everything that we can to provide prosecutors with the evidence that they need to prove that there was misconduct, that all of the warning signs were ignored,” he said.
“I’m not content with just seeing fines dished out. I do not think that that is a sufficient deterrent,” he said.
His comments came as investigations into the Redcliffe, Doornkop, Magnolia and Ormonde incidents exposed failures ranging from unlawful construction and inadequate oversight to failures in construction-stage safety controls.
At Redcliffe in Verulam, eThekwini, investigators found that a five-storey building that collapsed in December, killing five people and injuring 11, had no approved building plans or construction work permit. No built-environment professionals responsible for the building could be identified.
In Ormonde, Johannesburg, where nine workers died in March, investigators found serious concerns with the structural steelwork and found that no application for building approval had been submitted before the collapse.
The investigation also raised concerns about the involvement of an engineer who had previously been deregistered by the Engineering Council of South Africa. Those professional matters have been recommended for further investigation by the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA).
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Macpherson said the regulatory system needed to make deliberate non-compliance more costly, particularly where it resulted in death or serious injury.
He said the government was already preparing legislative and regulatory reforms, with a memorandum for Cabinet finalised and a Council for the Built Environment Amendment Bill expected to address some of the recommendations from the investigations.
The minister also linked the latest findings to the lessons from the George collapse, saying the government had been pushing for stronger accountability since that disaster.
He said the criminal justice process was ultimately the responsibility of police and prosecutors and that the department could not determine when cases would be enrolled or prosecuted.
“We obviously are very keen to see what comes out of that, because that is evidence that we have supplied to the police, to the investigators,” he said.
Macpherson said the same approach should apply to other serious incidents, adding that, with the support of Police Minister Firoz Cachalia, he had requested that the police investigators who worked on the George case also be involved in the eThekwini investigation.
The minister warned that weak consequences could encourage further non-compliance.
“For so long as that is the worst-case scenario, people will continue to cut corners,” he said.
He said stronger accountability must form part of a wider effort to reduce construction deaths, alongside better municipal enforcement, professional oversight and information-sharing between regulators.
The investigations found that municipalities often lack the capacity to detect unlawful construction before it becomes a danger, while different regulators hold separate information that could help identify warning signs.
Macpherson said the ultimate goal should not simply be to reduce the number of deaths but to eliminate them.
“Our target shouldn’t be 10 or five. It should be zero deaths and zero injuries in a year,” he said.
He stressed that the investigation reports themselves did not determine criminal or civil liability. Any potential criminal conduct would be referred to the appropriate law-enforcement authorities, while professional misconduct would be dealt with through the relevant professional councils.
