George building collapse - grieving families ‘spitting snakes’ at labour department’s ‘excuses’

Spokesperson for the George Building Collapse Victims’ Support Group, Muriel Hau-Yoon, lashed out at claims this week by Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Jomo Sibiya that Department of Employment and Labour officials had been “bullied” by high-ranking police officers investigating the biggest building disaster in South African history.

Read more: Buried alive — 2024, the year one of SA’s biggest construction disasters blighted the landscape

Hau-Yoon said “the SAPS investigating team went out of their way to assist traumatised survivors and families in identifying severely mutilated bodies”. 

Hau-Yoon, who speaks on behalf of 62 people affected by the disaster, added that those affected were “spitting snakes”.

Sibiya made the claims at a Thursday sitting of a joint parliamentary committee on Human Settlements and Public Works and Infrastructure.

Read more: George building collapse: Cops bullied inspectors, interfered in probe, labour dept claims

‘Walking the extra mile’

Hau-Yoon added that the SAPS team had “walked the extra mile and assisted victims with affidavits for their Labour claims when ham-handed Labour officials were sending victims from pillar to post”.

At least 28 injured and maimed workers were pulled from under tons of rubble in a massive recovery mission using hi-tech equipment to detect signs of life.

It lasted 202 hours on 24-hour shifts. At least 6,000 tons of rubble were carefully removed. At least 34 workers - many from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique - were crushed to death under the weight of buckled steel and concrete.

Those who dug through the ruins to reach the voices they could hear include members of the Gift of the Givers and rescue teams from the City of Cape Town, Breedevallei tech rescue, Search and Rescue South Africa (Sarza) and the SAPS.

On Thursday, Hau-Yoon said the Department of Employment and Labour’s “excuses” were because they had been unable to complete their investigation in 18 months. 

She said that while Sibiya had claimed to MPs that his department’s inspectors had faced “repeated obstruction” by the SAPS at the disaster site, investigators, in fact, had “walked the extra mile”.

Pillar to post

They had “assisted victims with affidavits for their Labour claims when ham-handed Labour officials were sending victims from pillar to post”.

Sibiya told Parliament that SAPS detectives had “chased them [officials] away” from the site during the rescue. 

Hau-Yoon excoriated Sibiya, saying emergency rescuers did not think about asking “each bleeding and traumatised victim on the ground for a valid work permit before rescuing him or her?”

‘Illegal workers’

The deputy minister had also stated to MPs that 77 claims had been submitted.

“Yet, there were only 62 victims - and not all lodged claims,” Hau-Yoon pointed out. Sibiya also informed the committee that 53 of the workers on site were “illegal”. 

Hau-Yoon responded that, if so, “why did they not inform them from the get-go that they didn’t have a snowball’s chance of compensation? Instead, they’ve created false hope for the past 18 months.” DM