Following a series of recent building and construction site collapses across South Africa, Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson has announced the findings of four investigations undertaken by the Council for the Built Environment (CBE).
The investigations follow incidents at Redcliffe, in Verulam, in eThekwini, KwaZulu-Natal; Doornkop, in Soweto, Gauteng; Ormonde, in Johannesburg, Gauteng; and the Magnolia Development, in Sea Point, Cape Town, in the Western Cape.
Across the four incidents, which occurred between December 2025 and March of this year, 17 people lost their lives and 24 people were injured.
Unpacking the findings of the CBE’s report on the incidents, Macpherson said that repeated building collapses pointed to deeper structural issues that needed to be urgently reviewed to improve building safety and construction oversight.
“As we work to turn South Africa into a construction site, it is critical that we do so in an environment where building construction can be trusted and the loss of life avoided,” the Minister said during a media briefing on August 20.
