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OHS inspections and enforcement in South Africa

What the Department of Employment and Labour actually checks, how the inspectorate is changing, and which records survive a blitz inspection. Our writing on inspection risk, gathered in one place.

What an inspection actually checks

An inspection is not a general enquiry into whether you take safety seriously. It is a check against specific provisions, and it is largely a documents exercise.

What a blitz inspection actually checks, and the record that survives it

The provisions an inspector works through, what gets asked for first, and why the file that survives is the one linked to evidence rather than the one that looks complete.

When the city joins the raid: the municipal by-law layer most employers miss

Inspections increasingly arrive with municipal officials attached, which brings a by-law layer most OHS files were never built to answer.

The state inspected its own buildings and failed 69 percent of them

What a 69 percent failure rate across state buildings says about the gap between having a compliance model and being able to evidence it.

How enforcement capacity is changing

The probability of being inspected is a function of inspector headcount, and that number is moving.

Ten thousand more inspectors: what a rebuilt labour inspectorate means

What a materially larger inspectorate does to inspection frequency, and which employers move from unlikely to likely.

What a record low British death toll tells South African employers

A comparison worth making carefully: what drove the improvement elsewhere, and which of those levers are available here.

When a shutdown, a deadline and a blitz land in the same week

A worked plan for the weeks where a statutory deadline, an operational shutdown and enforcement activity coincide.

The incident clock: every OHS Act deadline after a workplace incidentA timeline of what a South African employer must do after a workplace incident: record it on occurrence, notify the provincial director forthwith for a death or serious injury, report on WCL 1 or WCL 2 and start the investigation within 7 days, submit WCL 22 within 14 days for a diagnosed occupational disease, table the records at the next health and safety committee meeting, and keep Annexure 1 records for at least three years.The incident clock: what is due, and whenDeadlines run from the incident, not from when you found out. Position as at August 2026.On occurrenceRecord it, and leave the scene aloneEvery recordable incident goes on Annexure 1, including any needing treatment beyond first aid.Nothing at the site may be disturbed without an inspector's consent, except to prevent a furtherincident, to remove the injured or dead, or to rescue people from danger.GAR 9(1) and OHS Act s24(2)ForthwithTelephone the provincial directorRequired for a death, unconsciousness, loss of a limb or a likely permanent defect. Also when aninjured person later dies, and when the person injured is not an employee.OHS Act s24(1) read with GAR 8Within 7 daysReport on WCL 1 or WCL 2, and start investigatingThe written report goes to the provincial director. The investigation must be commenced by theemployer, an appointed person, a representative or a committee member. Findings go onAnnexure 1 immediately after completion.OHS Act s24, GAR 8, GAR 9Within 14 daysWCL 22 for a diagnosed occupational diseaseSubmitted by the medical practitioner to the chief inspector and to the employer, within 14 daysof the examination or treatment.Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases ActNext meetingThe committee considers the recordsIncident records are tabled at the next health and safety committee meeting.GAR 9At least 3 yearsKeep the Annexure 1 recordsRetained at the workplace and open for inspection for at least three years.GAR 9Reporting and recording are two separate duties. Recording captures a wider set of events than reporting does.
OHS Act incident deadlines. Every step is anchored to the section or regulation it comes from.

The duties behind the inspection

Inspectors work from the Act. These pieces cover the duties that generate the findings.

The OHS Act guide: the five things an inspector asks for

Statutory appointments, health and safety representatives, first aid, committees and incident reporting, each with its section, trigger and record.

The duty South Africa has not written down: psychosocial risk and section 8

Why the general duty in section 8 reaches further than the specific regulations, and what that means for hazards the regulations do not name.

Running OHS compliance by hand or by system: an honest comparison

Where manual compliance actually breaks, which is almost never at the point of writing the document.

The pattern across all of this: inspections rarely fail on the absence of a policy. They fail on an appointment whose supporting certificate lapsed, a register that was not updated when headcount crossed a threshold, or an incident that was recorded but never investigated within the seven days General Administrative Regulation 9(2) allows.

Where this sits in the service

The GRC Shop OHS app exists to close exactly that gap. It computes what each site requires against the sourced statutory rules, links every appointment to the certificate that supports it, drops the appointment when the certificate lapses, and runs the investigation and review clocks on the record rather than on somebody remembering.

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Positions stated as at August 2026. General information about published law, not legal advice. GRC Shop is not a law firm.