How to find a reliable contractor in South Africa comes down to three things, done in order. Read the registration and grade on the cidb register yourself. Look for the paperwork habits no register records. Then check the grade again, on a date you set.
We vet contractors for a living, and the third step is the one we see skipped most. This week the cidb showed why it matters. On 21 September 2026 the regulator published a media statement saying it is investigating the contractor gradings of Moriel Infrastructure Group.
The Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Dean Macpherson, directed the probe on 20 September, concerned that the company had obtained multiple cidb gradings on the same day. Allegations suggest it may not have met all the requirements for them. The cidb says its investigation is complete and awaits a Board decision in October 2026. No finding has been made at the time of writing.
This is not a piece about Moriel. It is about what the case teaches everyone else. A grade is a claim the regulator can reopen, and a client who checked it once has no way of knowing that it has been.
Is a cidb grade proof that a contractor is reliable?
No. A cidb grade tells you the contract value and class of works a contractor is registered for, and nothing about how the firm behaves on your site. It does not record whether the last three jobs finished, whether subcontractors were paid, or whether anyone wrote down what the client refused.
It is also a statement about the past. The contractor presented evidence to earn the grade, and the grade stands until something reopens it. Our piece on cidb grading levels sets out what each level permits. This one is about what happens to that permission after you have read it.
So when we call a contractor reliable, we mean two separate things. The firm may lawfully do the work, which the registers answer. And it does the work in a way that protects you, which only its own records answer.
Step one: read the register yourself
Ask for the contractor's CRS number, not the certificate. A PDF someone emailed you is a picture of a moment. A number you look up yourself on the cidb Register of Contractors is evidence about today.
Read the status field before the grade. Active, deregistered, expired and suspended are four different answers, and only one of them lets the firm take your job. Then open the cidb page that carries the Government Gazette notices of contractors removed from the register.
That page updates in bursts rather than monthly. The last four notices are dated October 2025, November 2025, April 2026 and July 2026. When a new one lands, we read it against every contractor we work with in one sitting, and a client with a vendor list should do the same.
The register is one of five checks. The others, including the National Treasury lists and the directors behind the company, are in five registers to check before a contractor starts.
Step two: the habits no register records
If we could look at only one thing before appointing a firm, it would be how the contractor writes things down. You can ask to see it before you sign.
Plumbing Africa published a case this month that shows exactly what good looks like. Barry Chapman of Chapman Plumbing replaced a water heater and noted there was no drip tray. The client refused to have one installed. The firm recorded the refusal by email, amended the quote and had the client sign it. At the end of the job it issued a note saying the installation was non-compliant without a drip tray.
Later the water heater failed through a manufacturing fault and damaged the client's apartment. The client tried to blame the plumber. In Chapman's words, "The paperwork we had put in place protected us from any further legal action."
Read that from the client's side and it protects you too. You know what was installed, what was advised and what you declined, in writing, with dates. Ask a shortlisted firm for a job card and a signed quote from a recent job, client details removed. A firm that cannot produce one does not keep them.
The second habit shows in the safety file. In a RACA Journal report on a SAIRAC safety leadership workshop, health and safety officer Tegan Beer explains that each client works to its own safety file index. Her advice to contractors is to ask for the client's health and safety specification and file index as soon as the purchase order arrives.
A contractor who asks you for those before starting is telling you something useful. So is one who can name the supervisor on your site. Beer's warning is that a file full of certificates means little if that supervisor does not know what to look for.
Step three: put a date on the check
Vetting is a dated result, not a status. A firm that passes every register today can be removed by gazette next month, have a director restricted, or have its grade investigated, and nobody will write to tell you.
The restricted suppliers list shows how that happens. As at 20 August 2026, National Treasury had recorded 35 companies and 45 directors or owners from Eskom's referrals alone, and a restriction follows the director rather than the company name. A check run once at appointment catches none of that.
So set the re-check when you run the check. At award for anyone new, and on a schedule shorter than the contract for anyone holding term work on your buildings. Write the date in the file, because an undated check quietly turns into a permanent one.
Arabella Infrastructure Solutions is a Johannesburg-based vetted contractor panel that verifies each contractor once and then keeps that verification current. A client commissioning work through it chooses among firms whose registers were read recently, not on the day they joined. The client page sets out what that covers.
On Monday
Take the contractor on your largest live job and look up its CRS number on the cidb register today. Write today's date next to the result.
Then ask that contractor for the job card from its last visit to your building. If the file has no check date and the contractor has no job card, you have found two gaps in ten minutes. Both are cheaper to close now than after something goes wrong.
