'Who needs paperwork?'

For more than a decade Jay Singh's construction company has been breaking the law.

The controversial businessman is the owner of Gralio Precast, the company building the Tongaat Mall when it collapsed in 2013 killing two people.

Yesterday he admitted that he had not registered a single building site with the labour department, as required, since 2003.

"So, from 2003, all your projects have contravened the regulations," said the commissioner of the inquiry into the mall's collapse, Phumudzo Maphaha.

Singh said he was unaware of the regulations but conceded that his company had contravened them.

"It's the truth," he said.

Gralio has been in business since 1986. About 75% of its work is for the government. It has built 70 schools, at least 28000 houses, four shopping malls and a major road.

The company also contravened the regulation that construction companies employ only competent, qualified workers.

But Singh yesterday defended his unqualified employees, including site foreman Ronnie Pillay, saying that a qualification meant nothing without experience.

When asked how it was that his "competent employees" had fitted only seven steel bars at Tongaat Mall as opposed to the 19 called for in the design, Singh blamed design engineer André Ballack.

"Don't blame the engineer," Maphaha responded. "He doesn't put in steel bars. Your employees couldn't read the drawings."

Regarding the allegedly weak concrete, Singh said he did not look at the results of strength tests because he relied on Pillay, Ballack and sub-contractors to check them.

The commissioner last year described the concrete as "weaker than mud bricks".

"It seems to me that the site operated on trust rather than results. In the construction business, we operate on facts and not trust," Maphaha said.

When asked why there was so little control on the construction site, Singh said his role, as Gralio's chief executive, was not critical on site.

He said construction continued while he was in hospital a month before the collapse.

Singh will today have to produce documentation proving that building plans for the mall had been submitted for approval.

The municipality had fined Gralio and hauled the developer, Singh's son, Ravi Jagadasan, to court when construction continued without approved building plans.

But Singh yesterday said it was normal for construction to proceed while plans were being approved.

"I have built over 2000 houses, valued at R500000 each without any plans. The [eThekwini] municipality had given me an open letter to say that I could build without plans," he said.

The municipality's lawyer, Ian Topping, said special consent had been granted to build houses [without approved plans].