Tongaat Mall Building Collapse and Inquiry

Jay Singh owns another mall in Phoenix, not sure if it has passed safety standards either :erm:
 
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Why spend money and time on following approval procedures and safe building principles? It is this mentality keeping us in the 3rd world.
 
Body found in Tongaat mall collapse

Johannesburg - The body of a 51-year-old man was recovered on Saturday during a rescue operation at the Tongaat mall construction site, north of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal police said.

"We can confirm that a body of a 51-year-old male has been recovered which [brings the] death toll to two," Captain Thulani Zwane said.

"The [rescue] operation is currently continuing."

No further details were available.

A woman was killed and 29 people injured when the mall collapsed on Tuesday.

On Thursday, police said officially, only one person remained unaccounted for.

However, the police could not rule out the possibility that others were buried beneath the slab that collapsed.

- SAPA
 
Search continues at Tongaat Mall

Durban - The search for bodies is continuing, a week after the collapse of a large section of the Tongaat Mall, police said on Tuesday.

"The search is not terminated. We need to move the rubble and make certain that no one else was there," said police spokesperson Mandy Govender.

A roof at the mall collapsed last Tuesday evening, killing two people and injuring 29.

Govender said members of the police's search and rescue unit were regularly going through the site while rubble was being moved.

The mall, which was being developed by Rectangle Property Investments, was due for completion in March next year.

However the company, headed by Ravi Jagadasan, had not been granted permission by the eThekwini municipality to build the mall.

Last week, eThekwini municipal manager Sibusiso Sithole said the city obtained an order from the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Durban on 14 November ordering a stop to all construction.

This order went unheeded and construction at the site stopped only after the accident.

The site was also not properly fenced, but Govender said on Tuesday that it was now properly fenced and guarded.

"There are slabs of concrete still hanging there. You cannot have people going onto the site."

Jagadasan is the son of Durban businessman Jay Singh, who is reportedly behind a string of construction projects in Durban that have been plagued by shoddy workmanship.

The Sunday Times reported that Singh was a director of Rectangle Property Investments until February.

On Tuesday, the DA urged the province's Economic Development MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu to fire the board of Ithala Bank for providing R83m for a failed project on Durban's Point Waterfront development.

According to the Mercury newspaper on Tuesday, the R83m was signed for despite there being no surety from Harikrishen Hansraj, whom the newspaper described as an agent for Singh.

- SAPA
 
Tongaat builders' tender letter questioned

Durban - Questions have arisen over a letter used by the builders of the collapsed Tongaat mall praising their work to obtain a low-cost housing tender from the eThekwini metro municipality.

This emerged following an announcement earlier this week by the National Home Builders' Registration Council (NHBRC) that it would investigate all projects currently under construction by Woodglaze Trading and Gralio Precast.

Gralio was the company building the Tongaat mall which collapsed on 19 November, killing two people and injuring 29 others.

Following that accident questions arose over the quality of Gralio's workmanship.

The municipality was subsequently criticised over the fact that it had awarded a tender to Gralio to complete a portion of the Cornubia low-cost housing development in Mount Edgecombe.

Ethekwini municipal manager Sibusiso Sithole said he had tried to prevent Gralio from being awarded the tender in 2011.

Sithole said: "The city manager rejected the award and Gralio appealed the decision to the municipality’s appeals authority, which overturned the city manager’s decision upon the emergence of new evidence, including a letter from the NHBRC praising the quality of Gralio’s work. This was contrary to an earlier NHBRC report which had criticised Gralio’s work and formed part of the Manase report findings."

It is this second letter that is being questioned. In fact, the NHBRC have had to approach the eThekwini municipality for a copy of this letter.

On Friday NHBRC spokesperson Molebogeng Taunyane said: "We have requested the [eThekwini] municipality to furnish us with a copy of that letter and we are still waiting for it."

Comment could not immediately be obtained from the municipality.

All companies that build housing are required by law to register with the NHBRC.

Quality of workmanship

The quality of Gralio's workmanship on a housing project in Durban's Phoenix area was also raised in the Manase report - a controversial forensic audit report into corruption at the municipality.

In another project, known as the Burbreeze Housing Project, Gralio was paid R2.2m a month by the municipality before the tender was awarded to another company.

According to the Manase report that company, Palm Civils, later transferred the project to Gralio.

According to the report at another Gralio development, known as Hammonds farm outside Verulam, costs had soared from R68m to R351m with 22 units built having to be demolished because of poor workmanship.

The Mercury newspaper last year quoted Durban businessman Jay Singh as saying: "It was the engineer’s fault those houses had to be demolished. It wasn’t our fault."

Singh's ex-wife Shireen Annamalay is listed as the owner of Gralio and Woodglaze.

His son Ravi Jagadasan is the director of Rectangle Property Investments, the company for which Gralio was constructing the mall.

According to a report in the Witness newspaper last week Jay Singh and his family trust were directors of Rectangle until earlier this year.

Taunyane said it was expected that the NHBRC would complete its investigation before the end of next week.

- SAPA
 
Controversial Durban businessman, Jay Singh, said he received a High Court order to stop work on the Tongaat Mall the day after its collapse.

He also denied in an interview on Thursday that the eThekwini Metro had sent him letters to halt construction. eThekwini officials had said they wrote to him four months before the cave-in, which killed two and injured many more.

“That’s hogwash,” Singh said. “The only time I was served with the court order to stop work was the day after the mall collapsed on November 20.”

He produced a copy of the court order, which he said was handed to him on November 21, and which bore an Inanda sheriff’s stamp dated November 21.

The order instructed Rectangle Property Investments cc to “forthwith desist” from any further building operations at the mall site.

Singh dismissed as lies claims by the city that his plans had not been approved.

“I have more than 200 engineering plans and the architect’s plans. They were submitted to the council in March this year,” he said, showing the Daily News copies of them.

Asked where the approved plans were for the building, Singh said they were still with the municipality.

But he gave reference numbers from the city’s town planning department in uMhlanga, which he claimed was confirmation that the plans had been approved.

He said the plans for the earthworks had been approved and two referrals had been made on the pre-scrutiny plans for the building.

“The referrals were for the traffic and storm water. The engineer resubmitted the plan and it was approved. The city also wanted a R6.3 million guarantee for the widening of the road. This was paid in full to them.”

The only outstanding item was a letter from Transnet confirming the servitude (permission for use of its adjoining land), Singh said.

“The boundary for the mall is right next to the (railway) track. We have applied to Transnet for the servitude and expect to get it in the next two weeks.”

Two independent sources said Singh had overstepped the boundary and had built more than 9m into the Transnet land. The sources said Transnet was extremely unhappy with this because the mall was too close to the railway line.

In an interview with the Daily News on Thursday at his business premises at the Phoenix Industrial Park, Singh also said he was being targeted by the Democratic Alliance.

Singh denied he was an unscrupulous businessman who bribed city officials or used ANC political connections to further his business interests.

“Yes, I am an ANC backer, that’s no secret,” Singh said. “But I never bribed anyone or gave kickbacks for jobs. But I can tell you that this Tongaat Mall fiasco started because of a DA conspiracy against me.”

Singh claimed his woes started earlier this year when he was approached by a Tongaat ANC councillor to help recruit local labour for the construction of the mall.

“The ANC councillor appointed a community liaison officer and more than 30 people were hired from the Tongaat community. That was when the local DA councillors began clashing with me and complained to the municipality about the plans for the mall not being in order.”

Singh named the DA’s Heinz de Boer and Brian Jayanathan, both councillors, as the people behind the “conspiracy”.

De Boer said Singh was using the DA as a scapegoat.

“He must really have an inflated opinion of himself if he thinks that all the DA does is conspire against him. Focus only shifted to him after the mall collapsed.”

City manager, Sibusiso Sithole, initially refused to comment on Thursday night on Singh’s counter-claims.

“If you spoke to Singh, so what? I don’t want to comment further.”

When pushed to comment, Sithole said he stood by the fact that Singh had no plans for the mall and that the city was forced to go to court because of his persistent non-compliance.

He refused to be drawn on claims by Singh that the court order was only served on November 21.

“You know what you know. I don’t want to say anything further. We need to clarify more issues. Once this is done, we will come back to the media with a response.”
Click to expand...

This was an angle I didn't expect from this cretin.

He's trying to now blame it on the DA as a "conspiracy"... I saw this headline yesterday afternoon on the drive home and couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes.
 
Inquiry into collapsed Tongaat mall set for January

Durban - An inquiry into the Tongaat mall collapse in which two construction workers died and 29 were injured, will begin in January, the Sowetan reported.

“The inquiry will take place during the second or third week of January,” KwaZulu-Natal labour department spokesman Nhlanhla Khumalo told the newspaper.

He reportedly said officials had until the end of December to finalise a report on the collapse of the mall.

The national labour department had appointed a presiding officer to head a section 32 hearing.

A section 32 hearing is mostly instituted against parties when negligence is believed to have caused occupational injuries and worker death.

According to the newspaper, Ravi Jagadasan was scheduled to appear in a court in February on a charge of contempt of court for allegedly ignoring an order to stop construction.

Jagadasan, the director of mall owner Rectangle Property Investments, the company which owned the mall, was accused of building the mall without permission from authorities. - Sapa
 
Municipality to sue Tongaat mall developer

Johannesburg - The eThekwini municipality wants Ravi Jagadasan, whose company built the Tongaat mall which collapsed last month, to be jailed for contempt of court, The Star reported on Thursday.

Alternatively, the city also asked the Durban High Court to impose a fine on Jagadasan's company, Rectangle Property Investments.

Two construction workers died and 29 were injured in the collapse.

According to the report, the contempt of court application had been set down to be heard in February.

In court papers, the municipality alleged the company disregarded an interim order and final order granted against it to stop construction of the mall.

In court papers filed in response to the application at the time, Jagadasan said: "There is no danger to members of the public or any other person in relation to this project."

He also claimed that the interdict application was "an abuse of the court process".

The municipality reportedly said Jagadasan should be held liable because he had controlled its actions and "caused the company to disobey" the court orders.

- SAPA
 
Tongaat mall inquiry commission to begin

A commission of inquiry into the mall collapse in Tongaat, KwaZulu-Natal, will begin on Tuesday.

A section of the mall, which was under construction, collapsed in November. A woman was killed and 29 people were injured.

The department of labour's occupational health and safety manager Phumudzo Maphaha has been appointed to preside over the commission, which would investigate events leading to the collapse of the Tongaat Mall.

The department was expected to call between 20 and 50 witnesses to appear before the commission.

A total of R2 million was expected to be spent in the commission's work, which was expected to be concluded in six months.


Source : Sapa /ns/ks
Date : 11 Feb 2014 02:02
 
Garyvdh said:
A total of R2 million was expected to be spent in the commission's work, which was expected to be concluded in six months.
Click to expand...

I bet they said the same thing about the Marikana Commission.

I wonder if these things actually achieve anything apart from lining the legal experts pockets.
 
Conflicts stall mall collapse probe

Durban - A commission of inquiry into the collapse of Tongaat mall, north of Durban, was postponed hours after it began on Tuesday.

Two people were killed and 29 injured when the mall collapsed in November.

The labour department's occupational health and safety manager Phumudzo Maphaha postponed the inquiry after it emerged that the lawyer representing the safety consultant was also representing employees.

“You can't represent two parties. He's an employee and I want him represented independently,” Maphapha told lawyer Omprakash Ramlakhan.

Maphaha said Ramlakhan's representation of the safety consultant and employees presented a conflict of interest.

“What if they start pointing fingers at each other?” he asked.

Ronnie Pillay, a foreman who was working at the Tongaat Mall construction site when it collapsed on November 19, would have given evidence on Tuesday.

All the companies involved in building the mall were represented by lawyer Saleem Khan.

Maphaha urged the eThekwini Municipality to furnish the inquiry with an engineer's report. He said the report had been promised at the end of December but despite the promise the commission still had not received it.

The mall was being developed by Rectangle Property Investments, but the company, headed by Ravi Jagadasan, had not been granted permission by the eThekwini municipality to build the mall.

Five days before the mall collapsed, the municipality had obtained a court order to stop all construction.

Jagadasan is the son of Durban businessman Jay Singh, who is reportedly behind a string of construction projects in Durban that have been plagued by shoddy workmanship.

The inquiry resumes on Wednesday.

Sapa
 
Probably got The Mpisane Lawyers ,and , Political Connections!!!
 
schumi said:
The mall was being developed by Rectangle Property Investments, but the company, headed by Ravi Jagadasan, had not been granted permission by the eThekwini municipality to build the mall.

Five days before the mall collapsed, the municipality had obtained a court order to stop all construction.
Click to expand...

Convenient?
 
Tongaat mall: Slab sagged before collapse

Durban - A slab of concrete at the ill-fated Tongaat mall sagged by 7cm in the days leading up to the collapse that claimed two lives and injured 29 others, an inquiry heard in Durban on Wednesday.

Ronnie Pillay, a foreman at Gralio Precast (Pty) Ltd, told the labour department inquiry investigating the collapse that one of the slabs at the mall sagged by 70mm.

The inquiry is being chaired by the department's occupational health and safety manager Phumudzo Maphaha.

Pillay said the area that ultimately collapsed was to the right of the sagging slab.

"When the foreman brought it to my attention, I stopped work [continuing] immediately."

He said he then contacted the engineer Andre Ballack and informed him of the problem. He also contacted Gralio owner Jay Singh.

"I told him we have got a serious problem," said Pillay, who admitted he had no formal qualifications.

Pillay said ultimately the instruction was to build two beams under the sagging slab.

He believed that had the supporting columns been bigger the collapse would have been averted and had raised his concerns with Singh. He was later advised these were sufficient.

Deep sound

He had raised concerns over the design of the lift shaft. These, he said had been accepted and the plans for the shaft were accordingly altered. Pillay said the slabs had been poured at least 21 days before the scaffolding was removed. He believed the time for the concrete to cure was more than sufficient.

Pillay said on the day of the collapse, 19 November, scaffolding was being removed. He was on the edge of the slab when "I heard a deep sound".

"Within seconds the entire slab started caving in a hole. I saw it coming towards me."

Two supervisors who were with him fled in the opposite direction.

"I jumped 3 metres down onto the mezzanine slab. That's how I escaped the fall."

He said he ran through mall and down to the bottom where he saw many injured workers.

- SAPA
 
Instructed to keep working

Asked if he was aware that the results of tests conducted on the concrete since the accident had revealed widely varying degrees of strength, he said he had "heard" about the tests.

He said work had been stopped at the site, but an instruction had been given for his team to complete their work.

"I was instructed to carry on working. We were working to finish up the areas we hadn't completed," he said.

He was aware that the company had been fined for building without permission from the eThekwini Metro municipality, but he was not aware of who had paid the admission of guilt fine.

Prashalen Gounder, the brickworks supervisor, said on the day of the accident he was not aware of the safety officer being present.

He had raised concerns with the architect over 10m walls that were built without any support.

The plans were altered to include support for the wall, but it was not the only time that the architect had changed his plans.

"In a space of three months there were 10 different revisions [to the plans]," said Gounder.

The inquiry continues on Thursday.

- SAPA
 
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