The DA calls for the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to take on the enforcement of building standards, which currently rest in the Department of Trade and Industry, but are not being properly enforced.
This requires Minister Parks Tau to hand this responsibility over to Minister Macpherson, and for the Council for the Built Environment to become the enforcement agency under Macpherson’s Department. I call for Minister Tau and Macpherson to speed up this move.
This week’s collapse of a commercial building in Johannesburg, killing nine innocent people, has shown that building standards, by-laws and regulations are not being properly enforced by many local governments.
A general lack of building compliance and proper inspecting across lots of badly governed local governments, and badly governed Metros, will continue to see buildings collapse unless they are forced to take accountability an improve their local government building compliance capacity.
Johannesburg’s failures to inspect building and enforce building regulations, are the same in dozens of other councils that are not enforcing building rules across South Africa. This must change.
The DA welcomes that a technical, governance and regulatory enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the Ormonde building collapse in Johannesburg on 2 March 2026 is now underway by the Council for the Built Environment, as directed by Minister Macpherson today.
The investigation must determine the probable technical cause of the collapse through structural and forensic analysis, within eight weeks.
Building regulations in South Africa currently fall under the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition primarily, including the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) and the National Regulator for Compulsory Standards (NRCS).
The National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act 103 of 1977 is the governing law, with technical standards (SANS 10400) developed by SABS.
These regulations are misplaced and must be brought under the Department of Public Works & Infrastructure’s entity, the Council for the Built Environment.
I call on Minister Macpherson and Minister Tau to speed up this move to bring this under DPWI.