City gets R1.2m fine from building council

Municipality failed to enrol subsidy houses

THE eThekwini Municipality has received a hefty fine for failing to comply with building regulations when it was constructing subsidy homes in Umqhawe Housing project in Inanda.

The municipality was fined R1.2 million by the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) Disciplinary Committee for failing to enrol 60 subsidy houses which were under construction at Inanda.

In a statement, the NHBRC said the municipality had paid the fine, which was a record single payment to date and a first from an organ of state operating in the subsidy sector.

The council’s acting chief executive, Songezo Booi, said it hoped the fine would act as a deterrent to future irregular behaviour by others.

“We are happy with the sanction imposed as it shows that such contraventions will be dealt with harshly in order to deter similar conduct in future, and hope that going forward the municipality will be proactive in ensuring compliance and not wait for enforcement and disciplinary sanctions by the NHBRC,” said Booi.

An official at the NHBRC said the municipality was supposed to enrol the home so that its inspectors would monitor the building from the foundation to the roof.

“The municipality did not enrol the building and this was picked up by one of our inspectors who was just doing the rounds in the area.”

She said the city would now have to do a late enrolment, which would be more expensive as the engineers would have to come on site to inspect the homes.

The NHBRC said the municipality, which was a developer in this case, commenced with construction of 60 residential units without enrolling the homes with the NHBRC.

“This is in contravention of the Housing Consumers Protection Measures which requires that all new homes be enrolled with the NHBRC 15 days prior to construction.”

Home enrolment insures consumers against poor building practices and permits the NHBRC to conduct building inspections at key stages of construction and prior to commencement of construction.

The council said the municipality pleaded guilty to all 60 charges proffered by the prosecution and was accordingly found guilty as charged by the disciplinary committee.

Furthermore, the committee further imposed, Counts 1 – 60: R25000 per count of which R5000 per count is suspended on condition that the developer is not found guilty of a similar transgression within the next two years, and that the developer complies with the late enrolment requirements within a period of six months from date of receipt of the written ruling.

A sum of R300000 was suspended subject to the above conditions. “Should the developer re-transgress and be convicted of a similar transgression by the disciplinary committee within the period of suspension (two years) and/or fail to late enrol the units in question, the suspended portion of the fine will come into operation,” the council said.

DA caucus leader Nicole Graham said they would be demanding a full report as to what happened and who should be held responsible.

“It is incredible that this has happened because now we have to pay the fine and it’s clear we were not complying with what was required,” she said.

IFP caucus leader Mdu Nkosi said he was not surprised and feared that this was one of many fines to come.

“This is normal in eThekwini: processes are not followed. For instance, in this municipality we have had cases where a developer would build houses on behalf of the municipality without the municipality’s knowledge, but it pays.”

He said the fine could be used for other city services, but it was a waste – like the funds that were wasted defending legal cases that could have been avoided.

“Officials in eThekwini do not follow processes; they have this mentally of ‘what is in this for me?’ and that leads to these problems,” he said.

Municipal spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said, “The city will always co-operate with all bodies whose responsibility is to advance the agenda of quality service delivery.

“However, with regard to this matter, we are not yet aware of such a fine.”