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[File image] George building collapse
The National Home Builders Registration Council is in the process of instituting disciplinary action against its suspended CEO, Songezo Booi, following the collapsed building at George in May last year.
This came out during a meeting of Parliament’s Human Settlements Committee. The previous board of the council took a decision to suspend Booi after the preliminary investigation showed there were serious lapses on the part of the council.
Briefing the committee, Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane says the board had also felt Booi was not handling the George collapse matter with the urgency that was required.
“And the key was that the CEO, with all the challenges of collapse, lacked urgency to deal with matters; currently, the chair and the council are in the process of charging and instituting disciplinary action in relation to that.”
Simelane says the plans submitted for the building that collapsed in George in May last year were for a single-story building.
WATCH: NHBRC blamed for George building collapse
She was briefing Parliament’s Human Settlements committee on the report that followed an investigation that found several lapses on the part of National Home Builders Registration Council staff. This includes the enrollment certificates, which are supposed to be finalised before construction starts, but were only submitted eight days after construction started.
Simelane says the probe found the developer also did not initially disclose that it would be a multi-story building.
“They filled out the first form for a single-story, and they started. But then they did the second fill-up with the multi-story, then they completed form AR 003, and at inspection, when they started the multi-story part, it shows on records we bypassed quite a bit, particularly to assess liatel with their technical assessment if they can manage this type of a job,” Simalane adds.
