In brief
The Occupational Health and Safety Act gives every South African employer a right that almost nobody exercises. Section 28(2) requires each designated inspector to be furnished with a certificate signed by or on behalf of the Minister, and section 28(3) says that whenever an inspector performs a function in the presence of a person affected by it, the inspector shall on demand by that person produce that certificate. [1] Demanding it is not obstruction and it is not rudeness. It is the mechanism the Act builds in, and it works in both directions: it is how you turn away a fraudster, and it is also how a real inspection is kept valid, because an inspection carried out by someone who cannot produce the certificate is open to challenge and any contravention notice that follows may be of no force and effect. [2] The Department has now warned three times in ten months that people are impersonating its inspectors to extract cash from small employers. [3][4][5] This article sets out what to ask, what to record, and where the line sits between checking credentials and hindering an inspector, which is itself an offence carrying a fine of up to R50 000 or a year in prison. [1]
What the Act actually entitles you to ask
The relevant words are short and they are worth reading as written.
Section 28(1) lets the Minister designate any person as an inspector. Section 28(2) then provides that each inspector so designated "shall be furnished with a certificate signed by or on behalf of the Minister and stating that he has been designated as an inspector", and adds a proviso: if the designation is limited to a particular function, the certificate must state that limitation. Section 28(3) completes it: "Whenever an inspector designated under subsection (1) performs a function under this Act in the presence of any person affected thereby the inspector shall on demand by such person produce to him the certificate referred to in subsection (2)." [1]
Three things follow from that wording and they are all practical.
The certificate is a document, not a badge or a branded shirt. The Department's own guidance in an earlier warning described a legitimate inspector as identifiable by an official departmental uniform and an inspector identification card. [5] That is useful, and it is not what section 28 says. A uniform can be bought and a card can be printed. The certificate is the statutory instrument and it is the one the Act obliges the inspector to produce.
The duty is triggered by your demand, not offered automatically. Nothing in section 28(3) requires an inspector to volunteer the certificate. The obligation arises "on demand by such person". If nobody asks, nothing is produced, and in most of the incidents the Department has described, nobody asked.
The limitation on the certificate matters as much as the certificate. Where a designation is limited, the certificate must say so. [1] An inspector designated for one function who performs another is outside the designation, and the certificate is the only place a person at the door can see that.
The half of this that is not about fraud at all
It would be easy to file this under scams. That undersells it, because the same subsection governs inspections that are entirely genuine.
Where an inspector cannot produce the certificate on demand, the inspection is open to being treated as unauthorised, and contravention notices issued on the back of it can be challenged as invalid and of no force and effect. [2] A commercial law bulletin published in March 2025 makes the point directly and grounds it in the Labour Court's decision in Truworths Limited v The Chief Inspector: Occupational Health and Safety, where the court also held that an appeal under section 35(3) permits a full rehearing rather than a narrow review, and that an inspector who prescribes a specific method of compliance instead of assessing what is reasonably practicable has misconstrued the function. [2]
So the demand is not a hostile act. It is the step that establishes, on the record, that what followed was a lawful inspection by a designated person. An employer who asks and records the answer has protected the process for both parties. An employer who does not ask has no way afterwards to show which it was.
This is a single-source proposition on the legal consequence and should be read as such: one law firm bulletin, freely accessible, resting on a reported judgment. It is marked provisional here, and if this article is accepted the judgment itself should be located and cited directly before publication.
The pattern, dated, and why the dates matter
Three separate warnings in ten months, from two official channels.
On 09 September 2026 the Department of Employment and Labour published a statement cautioning the business community around Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality about imposters doing rounds as inspectors from the Department. [3]
On 08 April 2026 the Department distanced itself from a video circulating of an individual conducting unauthorised labour inspections at a fast food outlet in Durban, said that only officially appointed inspectors may conduct workplace inspections, and warned that impersonating an inspector is a criminal offence. [5]
On 07 November 2025 the Department warned North West businesses that fraudsters were targeting companies that lacked the required legislative posters, claiming non-compliance and demanding immediate cash payment of invented fines. The Provincial Chief Inspector's line in that statement is the one to keep: all departmental services are free, and the Department does not sell posters, pamphlets or charts. [4]
A caution on method, recorded because this Hub has been caught by it before. Searching for the 2026 warning returns older Departmental pages that read as though they were published this month; one of them, a Mpumalanga blitz page dated 4 March 2020, ranks highly in 2026 searches and is logged in our source library as a trap rather than as authority. Each of the three statements above was matched to its own publication date before it was used, and the two older ones are used here as evidence that the pattern is recurring, not as evidence of anything happening now.
Where the line sits, because obstruction is an offence
None of the above is a licence to keep an inspector on the pavement while somebody makes phone calls.
A designated inspector may, without previous notice and at all reasonable times, enter any premises occupied or used by an employer, or on which an employee performs work or plant or machinery is used, or which the inspector suspects to be such premises. [1] There is no requirement of an appointment, a warrant in the ordinary case, or a convenient day. Separately, section 38(1)(e) makes it an offence to hinder or obstruct an inspector in the performance of their functions, and an offence under section 38(1) carries a fine not exceeding R50 000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both. [1]
So the sequence matters, and it is short. Ask for the certificate. Read it, including any limitation stated on it. Record the name, the certificate details and the time. Then let the inspection proceed. Asking first and complying immediately afterwards is exactly what the Act contemplates. Refusing entry until head office responds is not, and a real inspector is entitled to treat it as obstruction.
If the certificate is not produced, that is the point at which the Department's own advice applies: do not pay anything, in cash or by transfer, note the person's details, and contact the Provincial Chief Inspector or the nearest Labour Centre to verify, reporting the visit to the police if it looks like extortion. [4][5]
What to do this week
This is a twenty minute job and it does not need a consultant.
Write the door procedure down, on one page, and give it to whoever actually answers the door at each address. The Department's warnings describe fraudsters arriving at small premises and being paid on the spot, which happens because the person in the room does not know they are allowed to ask.
Name the person to be called. One name, one number, reachable during business hours, and a deputy. The procedure fails at the moment the receptionist has nobody to escalate to.
Make the record part of the procedure, not an afterthought. Date, time, name, certificate details, any stated limitation, what was inspected and what was said. If a notice follows, that record is the first thing an appeal under section 35(3) will rest on.
Put the free legislative posters up. The North West fraud specifically targeted employers who did not have them, because a missing poster is a visible pretext. [4] The Department does not charge for them, and anyone who offers to sell you one has told you what they are.
Check it at every address, not just at head office. Thresholds and appointments under this Act attach to a workplace rather than to a company, which our companion article on premises and payroll sets out in full, and a door procedure is no different: the address without one is where this happens.
GRC Shop view
This is the clearest small illustration we have of the gap our product exists to fill, and it is worth being precise about why.
An annual OHS audit is a photograph. It is accurate, it is useful, and it is taken on a day when nobody is standing at reception claiming to be an inspector. A consultant's file tells you what your compliance looked like in March. It does not tell the branch manager in Klerksdorp on a Tuesday morning what to ask the man in the departmental shirt, and it cannot, because the file is not in the room and the person who wrote it is not either. That is not a criticism of the auditor or the consultant. The audit was right on the day it was done. The problem is the three hundred and sixty four other days, and the fact that nothing holds the pieces together between them.
That is also the honest answer to the two objections we hear most. We already have someone for this does not reach it, because having someone does not put a written door procedure and a named escalation contact at every address. We have just been audited does not reach it either, because an audit tests the premises it visited on the day it visited them, and the certificate demand is made by whoever happens to be at the front on a day nobody planned.
Compliance files go stale. Our system keeps yours current. In this case current means something very small and very specific: that the person at the door knows they may ask, knows what to ask for, knows who to phone, and writes down what happened. That is a live record rather than a report, and it is the only form in which this particular protection actually works.
Abbreviations
- BCEA: Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997
- DEL: Department of Employment and Labour
- OHS: occupational health and safety
- OHSA: Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993
- SME: small and medium enterprise
References
[1] Republic of South Africa, "Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993, sections 28, 29(1) and 38(1)", 1993. https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act85of1993.pdf
[2] Fasken, "Guarding your rights: the importance of inspector certification during OHSA inspections", 31 Mar 2025. https://www.fasken.com/en/knowledge/2025/03/guarding-your-rights-the-importance-of-inspector-certification-during-ohsa-inspections
[3] Department of Employment and Labour, "Business Community around Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality cautioned about imposters doing rouds as Inspectors from department of Employment and Labour", 09 Sep 2026, list- 23 Sep 2026 (same day, second pass): ACCEPTED by Philip and added to the insights_sync.py FILES list for creation as an Insights draft. LinkedIn companion written as 30c. No factual claim changed on acceptance and the provisional marking on the Fasken and Truworths point was deliberately left in place, because the LinkedIn article cannot be edited after publication on this account and an overstated claim there could not be withdrawn.
ed on the Department's media statements index. https://www.labour.gov.za/Media-Desk/Media-Statements/Pages/media-statements.aspx
[4] SAnews, "North West businesses warned against fake labour inspectors", 07 Nov 2025. https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/north-west-businesses-warned-against-fake-labour-inspectors
[5] South African Government, "Employment and Labour on unlawful and unauthorised individuals masquerading as labour inspectors", 08 Apr 2026. https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/employment-and-labour-unlawful-and-unauthorised-individuals-masquerading