Grayston bridge enquiry postponed until July 2018

28-09-2017
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Moneyweb
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This after being delayed since August 2016.

Almost two years after a temporary bridge structure collapsed onto the busy M1 freeway, killing two people and injuring 19, the Department of Labour’s enquiry into the causes of the event was again postponed on Wednesday.

This follows several earlier postponements that the department failed to explain adequately at the time.

The construction work on a pedestrian bridge over the M1 freeway, near the Grayston Road offramp in Sandton, was done without interrupting the traffic. On October 14 2015 the temporary structure, which included scaffolding, collapsed onto vehicles that were travelling underneath in mid-afternoon traffic.

Civil claims resulting from the event will prescribe three years thereafter.

The parties before the enquiry are Murray & Roberts as principal contractor and material supplier, its client the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), the JDA’s agent Royal HaskoningDHV and Form-Scaff, the supplier of some of the scaffolding.

ENSafrica’s Willem le Roux, who specialises in occupational health and safety law, says: “The enquiry is aimed at identifying the cause of the accident, recommending remedial measures to prevent something similar and also to recommend to the National Prosecuting Authority whether any person should be charged with a criminal offence relating to the accident.”

For that reason, an enquiry like this should be finalised as soon as possible, Le Roux said.

The enquiry last sat in August last year when Form-Scaff expert witness Gary Farrow, a mechanical engineer from Australia, testified. It was then postponed to give him more time to respond to questions put to him at short notice.

The department postponed sittings scheduled for March to April and again from May to June this year, without any clear reason. These dates were set down well in advance after coordinating the diaries of several legal teams, all of whom will only be available again in July next year.

In March the department blamed “technical challenges” and on Monday it said in a statement: “The long lull was further due to technical glitches the commission encountered, which were beyond its control”.

Moneyweb has learnt that this might be a reference to the department’s struggle to find competent service providers to record and transcribe the proceedings. Apparently the recordings of the first few days of the enquiry early in 2016 were not up to standard and several service providers have since been hired and fired.

When asked about the matter on Wednesday, Department of Labour spokesperson Teboho Thejane emphasised the difficulty of coordinating the diaries of the legal teams, but then confirmed the issues with the recording of proceedings when Moneyweb confronted him about it.

On Wednesday, legal representatives of Murray & Roberts and Form-Scaff told the commission that they would not present any further expert testimony.

The bulky report Farrow presented on Tuesday, without prior notice, was by agreement not accepted into evidence.

Other parties and the commission itself are not precluded from calling other expert witnesses at a later stage.

The parties agreed to resume with factual evidence when the enquiry resumes in July next year and papers will be exchanged in advance. It is expected that this phase of the enquiry will see staff of Murray & Roberts, Form-Scaff, the JDA and Royal HaskoningDHV who were directly involved in the project take the stand.

The enquiry is set down from July 2 until the end of September next year and is expected to finalise its work by then.