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George building collapse deaths weren’t ‘in vain’ as probe reveals shortcomings — Simelane

George building collapse deaths weren’t ‘in vain’ as probe reveals shortcomings — Simelane
Search and rescue operations at the collapsed Neo Victoria building site on May 16, 2024 in George, South Africa. It is reported that the four-storey block of flats under construction collapsed with 81 workers on site, and not 75 as previously stated. (Photo: Gallo Images/Die Burger/Lulama Zenzile)
Tamsin Metelerkamp
By Tamsin Metelerkamp
9 Apr 2025
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The collapse of a five-storey residential property development in George last year, which caused the deaths of 34 people, has revealed glaring deficiencies at the National Home Builders Registration Council, including flawed inspection processes, underqualified staff and the failure to enforce health and safety standards on site.

The National Home Builders Registration Council’s investigation into the collapse of a five-storey residential property development in George last year has revealed that there were several breaches in occupational health and safety standards at the construction site.

In a media briefing on the council’s investigative report on Wednesday, 9 April 2025, Minister of Human Settlements Thembi Simelane said that violations included a failure to address safety concerns at the site, as well as the resignation of a safety consultant during the course of the building process.

Simelane said that one of the key takeaways of the report was that the council’s home inspection procedures “lacked clear guidelines” for addressing health and safety violations, leaving inspectors without the means to ensure compliance with safety standards on construction sites.

Thembi Simelane, the Minister of Human Settlements, said there were several breaches in occupational health and safety standards at the site of the collapsed building in George last year. (Photo: Gallo Images / Luba Lesolle)



“We believe transparency and commitment to addressing the shortcomings within the human settlement sector, which we are overseeing, are important,” said Simelane.

“We want to promise the families and friends of the departed workers who were befallen by the tragic incident that fateful day, in the hands of negligence which could have been avoided, that their lives were lost, but not in vain.”

The National Home Builders Registration Council is a regulatory body of the home building industry, with a mandate to protect the interests of housing consumers and to ensure that builders comply with the prescribed building industry standards. 

Its report comes almost a year after the collapse of the five-storey development in George, known as 75 Victoria, led to 34 deaths. Another 28 people caught in the collapse survived.

The contractor for the development was Liatel Developments, under director Theuns Kruger.

Read more: George building collapse linked to regulatory lapses at building council, allowing contractor to ‘cut corners’

Lapses in regulatory oversight


The report revealed glaring gaps in the council’s regulatory oversight of the George construction site. The initial inspection of the site took place eight days after the project had been enrolled with the council, falling outside the five-day timeframe for such inspections. 

“(In terms of) competency of artisans and other staff on site, there were gaps in the competency of key personnel. This included unqualified personnel who lacked formal qualifications in engineering or quantity surveying, and they were playing critical roles in areas such as inspection,” said Simelane.

“The competency of a technical manager was equally found wanting. The investigation revealed significant deficiencies in the oversight and assessment of the manager’s qualification.”

Simelane said that the geotechnical report for the site, which was meant to provide data on the physical properties of soil earthworks and foundations for the proposed structure, didn’t include “crucial information”, such as dynamic cone penetrometer tests and geological maps.

“The investigation uncovered that the George Municipality approved the plans when the construction was already under way. This means the work on site started before approvals were finalised,” she said.

Search and rescue operations at the collapsed Neo Victoria building site on 16 May  2024 in George, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Die Burger / Lulama Zenzile)



During a meeting of the portfolio committee on human settlements on Friday, 4 April, Simelane reported that the officials at the council failed to ensure the George building project met mandatory requirements for registration and enrolment.

In Wednesday’s briefing, she expanded on this by stating that “the company in question inaccurately presented its capabilities during the registration phase. Among other things, it failed to declare its intention to construct a multi-storey building. This omission... breached the National Home Builders Registration Council policies, which require transparency regarding a home-builder’s intended project scope.”

The enrolment forms for the building project were only processed after construction at the site had started. It was also found that one National Home Builders Registration Council official used the credentials of another employee to greenlight the enrolment of the project, according to Simelane.

Report recommendations


The council investigation concluded that the collapse of the building in George was the result of “systemic failures across multiple levels of oversight, non-compliance with the regulatory standards (and) mismanagement by both the National Home Builders Registration Council and the project personnel”, said Simelane.

The recommendations for the council included:

  • Ensuring National Home Builders Registration Council registration certificates for projects clearly state the type of building a home builder is permitted to construct.

  • Establishing a “dedicated or ad hoc peer review team” to independently review high-risk projects, such as multi-storey buildings.

  • Conducting a comprehensive competency skills audit of inspectors and developing thorough due diligence processes for evaluating all information submitted during the verification process for projects.

  • Ensuring technical managers are on site full time during critical stages of construction.

  • Preventing council staff from using other employees’ login credentials for approval or verification processes.


Several National Home Builders Registration Council officials implicated in the report have been suspended. Simelane said that “the outcome of the investigation also made recommendations that implicated officials be held accountable for their actions. The charges that will be levelled against them include, among others, dereliction of duty, misconduct, negligence, dishonesty and misrepresentation in official inspection reports.”

Chairperson of the National Home Builders Registration Council, Noxolo Kiviet, said that the council was appointing a team of HR specialists to manage the disciplinary processes related to the George collapse.

“There are charges which were referred to the SAPS (South African Police Service) for further investigation in areas where, as the National Home Builders Registration Council, we do not carry a mandate to go beyond. The construction company has been referred… to SAPS for investigation.

“We wouldn’t want to find that somebody got off scot-free because of an administrative technicality. We want the process to be thorough,” she said.

Kiviet said that as part of the council’s response plan, professionals had been sent out to inspect other “high-risk” building projects on its register.

Housing Consumer Protection Act


The Department of Human Settlements was involved in drafting the Housing Consumer Protection Act, signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa last year. Simelane said this law introduced “significant changes to the legislative framework of South Africa’s home building industry”. 

“It actually even protects the consumer… It establishes the enforcement tools and prescribes appropriate penalties and sanctions to deter home non-compliance by home-builders,” she said.

The new law emphasised the professionalisation of inspectors and required the council to establish and maintain a register of home-builders and developers, added Simelane.

“The purpose is to facilitate, among other things, risk management in the tendering process in relation to building a home or a multiple-storey building… but also to facilitate the assessment of the performance of the home-builder or developer in the execution of home-building contracts.” DM

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