Five days after the collapse of a temporary bridge structure on the M1 highway near the Grayston off-ramp in Sandton, Murray & Roberts (M&R) contracts manager Lucas Baars told a meeting that missing bolts on a key assembly played no role in the accident.
This was however questioned by the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) on Tuesday, who contracted M&R for the construction of the bridge. M&R was also accused of deviating from the detailed drawings for the scaffolding that supported the structure. Aluminum Composite Panel Cladding
Two people were killed and 19 injured when the temporary works, erected in preparation for the bridge construction, collapsed on vehicles travelling on the highway around 15:45 on October 14 2015.
At a sitting of the Department of Labour’s inquiry into the incident on Tuesday, JDA project manager, engineer Siyabonga Genu said Baars concluded at a meeting on October 19 that the missing bolts did not affect the structure.
The bolts were supposed to join two pre-assembled halves of the lattice girder – the horizontal structure above the highway that would provide support for the pouring of the bridge slab later.
The two halves were pre-assembled at Form-Scaff’s premises and transported to the construction site. Genu said M&R was responsible for bolting the two assemblies together.
Affected parties were allowed by commissioner Lennie Samuel to submit administrative reports to the commission of inquiry during the morning session.
M&R as principal contractor, JDA as client, Royal HaskoningDHV as the JDA’s principal agent and consultant, and Form-Scaff as supplier of the material used for the construction for the temporary works, made submissions.
Shadine Smith, one of the injured, also sent representatives to observe the proceedings.
With the exception of JDA, the other three parties all read only a summary of their reports into the record, thereby avoiding divulging the full detail to the media, who were only allowed to report on the proceedings. Samuel expressed his disappointment, saying he expected the parties to have presented and read into the record what had been submitted to him 11 days before. That, he said “would have cleared up uncertainties and informed the house” of processes followed.
He ruled that the written reports may not be disclosed to the media or any other party, excluding the commission and recognised interested parties, but instructed Form-Scaff to read its full statement into the record, since its summary report “does not contain statements”.
Form-Scaff denied having been responsible for the design of the temporary works that subsequently collapsed. This contradicted an earlier statement by M&R that Form-Scaff was responsible for the design and supply of material for the temporary works.
Form-Scaff stated that its ‘Mr Erasmus’ stressed to M&R the need to appoint a registered engineer to oversee the design and construction. M&R allegedly deemed this unnecessary and said it appointed Roger Barker as chief engineer: construction for the design, inspection and approval of the temporary works.
Form-Scaff submitted that it did provide designs, but that was only to quantify and cost the material it had to supply. It did supply so-called controlled copies of some of the designs, but its designs were subject to Barker’s approval, Form-Scaff submitted. Full records are kept on who sends what to whom and any updates to the designs.
M&R allegedly deviated from detailed drawings Form-Scaff supplied for the assembly of the Kwik-Stage scaffolding on the Eastern and Western side of the structure, and completed only part of the Kwik-Stage.
Form-Scaff stated that prior to the collapse it was concerned about the alignment of the girder (support beam) pre-assemblies.
JDA’s Genu earlier said Royal HaskoningDHV was responsible for monitoring the site by attending site meetings, reviewing drawings and checking completed work for compliance to designs. Its site engineer, ‘Mr O. Aadnesgaard’ was responsible for inspecting sections of the temporary structure, once erected to determine whether it complied with the design. For this purpose he was expected to be on site daily.
The parties were instructed by Samuel to submit their investigation reports by the end of March, in preparation for the next sitting on April 19. At that hearing witnesses may be called.
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This isn’t medical Doctoring or chartered accountancy where you bury or bankrupt your mistakes, this is engineering where you sign your name in blood and if your bridge falls down you are negligent (if you were not negligent or incompetent then it wouldn’t have fallen down, right?)
He will leave the group at the end of February.
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