George building collapse: numbers revised

A total of 81 construction workers have been confirmed to have been on site at the time a building collapsed in George Municipality in the Western Cape on Monday.

The revised number was confirmed on Thursday following a previous report of 75 people having been reported to have been on site when the incident happened.

Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi visited the site of the collapsed building, where he interacted with the local and provincial government to get an update from rescuers and Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) inspectors from the department, who were dispatched to the site.

Briefing media, Nxesi said the police are currently “in control” at this stage and will be allowed to do their own work unhindered until their investigation is complete.

“At some stage, once they are done with their work, the police will hand over to the Department of Employment and Labour, which will be able to start with its own investigation. Our investigations are informed by the Occupational Health and Safety Act, in particular Section 31 and 32, [which guides what] normally happens when we face such incidents,” Nxesi said.

Giving the different statutory roles played by different levels of government and departments, the Minister said it was agreed that all parties will play their roles collaboratively and in support of one another.

“Any interested parties who want to do their investigations will do them, but we will also do our own investigation and we will be informed by the police once they are done. At the end, once we get the investigation of the police and our investigations, in particular, we will be able to say what we are going to do,” Nxesi said.

He emphasised that the department did not want to speculate on what transpired but will leave everything to the investigations.

“Once the investigations have been able to expose the facts, we will talk to that.”

The Minister noted that a number of national department Ministers, including Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Human Settlements, Police and Social Development, also have interest in the matter.

“We will be following through our people on the ground on what is happening. We were also informed that the Department of International Relations and Cooperation also has an interest because we [will not] be able to communicate with some of the families, in terms of the languages. 

“We need to talk to the various missions who are here in South Africa to send their people… so they can communicate properly with the families,” Nxesi said.

He noted that while the department has compensation to give, this can only be done once all the people have been identified.

He said there is no timeline for the investigation, as it will depend on what is uncovered during the investigation, and the police will hand over the site to the department.

The Minister further appealed to the employer of the construction workers or the construction owners to come forward and talk with the families of the workers.

“Thus far, in terms of what I’ve been briefed, we do not know where they are,” Nxesi said. – SAnews.gov.za