South Africa has launched a new national construction safety framework aimed at preventing building collapses, strengthening accountability and rebuilding confidence in public infrastructure delivery.
Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson unveiled the National Built Environment and Construction Safety Framework at the second Public Works and Infrastructure Summit.
The new framework is designed to improve cooperation between government, regulators, municipalities, professional councils, developers and contractors while placing public safety at the centre of construction and infrastructure decisions.
Macpherson also announced plans to gazette new Council for the Built Environment Public Interest and Safety Regulations and launched a Public Infrastructure Confidence Index to track confidence in South Africa’s infrastructure system.
The interventions follow several deadly and serious building collapses across the country, which have raised questions about construction quality, professional accountability, regulatory oversight and enforcement.
“The painful lessons of George, Redcliffe and Ormonde remind us why reform cannot wait,” Macpherson said.
The George building collapse claimed 34 lives and injured 28 people. According to Macpherson, an engineer responsible for signing off the building plans was subsequently found guilty of five legal contraventions and suspended.
Investigations into building collapses in Redcliffe, north of Durban, and Ormonde, south of Johannesburg, have also been completed, with their outcomes expected to be communicated.
The new safety framework recognises that responsibility for the built environment is currently spread across several institutions and different spheres of government.
Municipalities are responsible for areas including building plan approvals, inspections and occupation certificates, while occupational health and safety, professional regulation and broader built environment oversight fall under other government departments and regulatory bodies.
According to Macpherson, gaps can emerge when these systems do not work together effectively.
“We need stronger intergovernmental cooperation, clearer lines of accountability, better enforcement capacity, and professional sign-offs that are treated as solemn responsibilities, not box-ticking exercises,” he said.
“Public safety cannot depend on luck. It must be built into the system.”
The forthcoming CBE Public Interest and Safety Regulations will focus on three areas: structural and dolomitic incidents, compliance during the erection of buildings, and certification requirements for people performing critical functions in the built environment.
The regulations are expected to establish clearer processes for identifying, reporting and responding to structural failures and risks, while strengthening requirements around building approvals and occupation certification.
The summit also placed renewed attention on the maintenance of public assets, with government arguing that infrastructure management must move away from responding only when facilities reach crisis point.
“A modern public works system cannot be purely reactive. It must be preventative,” Macpherson said.
“It must know what assets it owns, understand their condition, plan maintenance properly, invest before collapse, and use public assets for the public good.”
The newly launched Public Infrastructure Confidence Index will provide a periodic measure of how stakeholders view the performance, readiness, capability and credibility of South Africa’s public infrastructure system.
Government intends to use the index to identify bottlenecks, assess whether reforms are having an impact and measure changes in confidence over time.
Macpherson also highlighted a recent project at the Beitbridge Border Post as an example of how quickly public infrastructure can be delivered when government teams work with urgency.
According to the Minister, a repatriation centre near South Africa’s border with Zimbabwe was constructed by departmental officials within 96 hours on land that had previously been overgrown and undeveloped.
“It was public works at its best: practical, urgent, humane and focused on solving a real problem,” he said.
The Minister said the broader goal is to transform the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure into an economic delivery unit capable of improving infrastructure delivery, strengthening professional accountability and making better use of public assets.
He stressed that achieving this will require collaboration across government, business, academia, municipalities, professional bodies and communities.
“The complexity of our infrastructure challenges demands partnership. Government cannot do it alone, nor should it,” Macpherson said.
The summit focused on three priorities: preventing building collapses, improving public asset management and addressing the gap between infrastructure planning and actual project delivery.
Macpherson said the impact of the summit would ultimately be determined by whether its discussions result in stronger enforcement, better maintenance, improved accountability and faster infrastructure delivery.
“The National Built Environment and Construction Safety Framework gives us a platform for action. The Public Infrastructure Confidence Index gives us a tool to measure progress,” he said.
“Let us use today to move from collapse to confidence, from disaster to excellence, from neglect to maintenance, and from plans to projects.”
