The Democratic Alliance in eThekwini notes the findings of the independent investigation into the fatal five-storey building collapse at the River Ranch Temple complex in Verulam in December 2025.
The report is more than an account of what went wrong at one construction site. It exposes a serious failure of municipal enforcement and raises fundamental questions about how illegal and potentially dangerous developments are allowed to proceed unchecked in eThekwini.
A five-storey building was constructed in Redcliffe without approved building plans, without a construction permit and without an identified built-environment professional overseeing the design or foundations. Most concerning of all, municipal inspectors failed to issue a stop-work order despite the construction taking place without the necessary approvals.
That is not simply a paperwork failure. It is an enforcement failure that cost lives.
The findings released by Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson point to serious weaknesses in the Municipality’s planning, inspection and enforcement systems. The purpose of these systems is precisely to prevent unsafe construction from reaching a point where residents, workers and surrounding communities are placed at risk.
The tragedy should therefore force eThekwini to answer difficult questions.
Why was construction allowed to continue? Why were the required approvals not in place? Why did municipal enforcement not intervene before the building reached five storeys? And how many other illegal or unauthorised developments are currently operating without adequate municipal oversight?
These questions cannot be dismissed as an isolated incident.
Across eThekwini, residents continue to raise concerns about illegal land uses, unauthorised structures, illegal scrapyards, truck yards and developments that appear to operate for extended periods without meaningful enforcement. When bylaws and planning regulations are not consistently enforced, it creates the perception that compliance is optional for those willing to ignore the rules.
The Municipality has a legal and constitutional obligation to protect communities by ensuring that development takes place in accordance with approved plans, building standards and applicable legislation.
The National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act exists to ensure that buildings are properly designed, approved, constructed and inspected. It is unacceptable for the Municipality to discover the consequences of non-compliance only after a building has collapsed and lives have been lost.
The DA believes the findings must result in concrete corrective action, not another report that gathers dust on a municipal shelf.
We call on eThekwini Municipality to urgently review its entire building-control and planning-enforcement system, identify where the breakdown occurred, establish whether disciplinary or other accountability measures are warranted, and publish a clear plan to prevent a repeat of this tragedy.
The Municipality must also provide greater transparency around building-plan approvals, inspections, stop-work orders and enforcement action. Residents should not have to wonder whether an unsafe development has been identified, reported and ignored.
The DA will continue to use its oversight role to demand answers and ensure that the lessons from the Verulam collapse are acted upon.
When the DA takes over eThekwini, we will overhaul the Municipality’s planning and enforcement systems. This will include strengthening professional and technical capacity, improving accountability within building control, introducing greater transparency through digital permit and application tracking, and establishing proactive enforcement teams capable of identifying and acting against illegal developments and land uses before they become disasters.
The people of eThekwini deserve a Municipality that prevents disasters, not one that investigates them after lives have been lost.
The Verulam tragedy must be a turning point. There can be no more excuses, no more delays and no more looking the other way when municipal regulations are ignored.
Enforcement must mean enforcement – before the next building falls.