Trenches of death claim lives
Another contractor not found guilty for three boys’ deaths
Three months after four boys drowned at two construction sites in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, the City of Tshwane says it’s still contemplating banning one of the companies and pursuing a civil lawsuit against it.
The city concluded its investigation into what happened at the two sites of the tragic deaths of the four boys aged between nine and 12 in December and found that one company should be held liable for the second incident.
But the city said investigations found that in the first incident that claimed three lives, the contractor couldn’t be held responsible after they had repeatedly installed barricades to secure their site but these were stolen on several occasions.
Tshwane mayor Randall Williams’s spokesperson Jordan Griffiths told Sowetan yesterday their investigation of the two incidents in Hammanskraal found that one company, Khato Civils, should be held accountable for how it managed its site where a trench was left uncovered in an informal settlement.
Griffiths said Khato Civils has been “put under strict terms” that include the possibility of facing a ban from future city projects after the incident that led to the death of nine-year-old Tshiamo Hleza in November, after he fell into a trench that they left uncovered for three days.
“If anything of this nature would happen again, the contractor in the second Hammanskraal incident [Khato Civils] would be totally dismissed and banned from doing work in the city in future,” Griffiths said.
“They were instructed that they have to secure the site and ensure that there’s proper security in their sites.”
Griffiths said the company received “a bit of a lashing formally from the city”.
Williams had vowed to pursue a civil suit against Khato Civils after describing their actions as “blatant criminality”.
However, Griffiths yesterday said the city’s legal department was still looking into the matter.
“This option is still being explored to assess whether or not the city is able to launch a civil claim against the contractor.
Our legal processes aren’t that quick,” Griffiths said.
He said the city issued the same notices to all other contractors in the city doing the same type of work to ensure that sites that could be dangerous to the public are secured.
The family of Hleza, who drowned in the 3m-deep hole left open by Khato Civils, said the city has not informed them about the conclusion of its investigation.
His sister Dimakatso said: “Nobody has been to our house ever since they initially came after the incident. We are obviously angry as a family but what can we do?”
Khato Civils CEO Mongezi Mnyani confirmed that they had “fruitful discussions with the mayor and our engineers on site and those coming from the city”.
“We had meetings but the part about us going to be banned was never part of our discussions. There were never any threats of banning anybody,” he said.
He said the meetings had “not been punitive” because what had happened was not something deliberate and that the discussions centred on avoiding similar incidents.