GEORGE NEWS - The George Municipal Council's decision on whether to write off almost R10.8m spent on clearing and rehabilitating the site of the collapsed 75 Victoria Street building has been postponed.

A recommendation by the Finance Committee that the money should be written off was tabled before Council at a special meeting on Tuesday 23 June; however, the item was withdrawn and no decision was taken.

The five-storey building of flats collapsed on 6 May 2024 when construction to the concrete roof and service installations were still in progress. According to the Finance Committee's report, the incident necessitated an immediate emergency response to ensure public safety, facilitate rescue operations and undertake clean-up actions. The municipality was therefore compelled to incur unforeseeable expenses relating to specialised services, equipment and materials.

"Given the complexity and potential liability arising from the incident, the municipality appointed a legal team to advise on recovery prospects. The legal process has since been completed, and the advice received confirms that the outstanding debt is uncollectable as the owner, Neo Victoria Developments, has been placed under liquidation," reads the report.

The committee states that by continuing to reflect the amount in its books as recoverable would be inconsistent with generally recognised accounting practice (Grap) standards and "would result in a misrepresentation of the municipality's financial position".

The proposed write-off complies with the municipality's credit control and debt collection policy, which provides for the writing off of debt where a debtor has been declared insolvent and all reasonable steps to recover the debt have been taken.

Chantèl Edwards, head of municipal communications, said the decision for withdrawal "was taken internally". "No reason can be given to the media."

There were 62 people on the building site, of whom 34 died in the implosion. The families of the deceased have been awaiting the outcome of the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA) scrutiny of the docket that it had received from the police's investigating team in February this year.

At the end of May, the NPA told George Herald that it was taking time in considering the docket as it was "being thorough due to the nature of the evidence".

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