All members of the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) board bar one have been asked to resign. 

The request was sent to board members earlier this week by email and post and came from the minister responsible for the construction regulator, Jonathan Attard. 

Only one of the BCA's current board members - the Opposition's representative on the regulator's board, David Bonello - was not sent a resignation request.  

Why are they being asked to resign?

Board members were not told why they were being asked to resign.

Prime Minister Robert Abela confirmed "there have been movements in the composition of the board” when asked about the issue by Times of Malta. 

Abela said he is interested in wide raging reforms rather than the composition of the board itself and the decision to change the board’s composition was not related to a roof collapse that injured workers in Floriana on Friday morning. 

Sources close to the authority told Times of Malta they suspect the  government is unhappy with growing dissent among board members at decisions taken by the BCA.

The fear is that the government is keen to make a clean sweep and recompose the BCA board with members more willing to toe the line, they said. 

But government sources shot down that suggestion and said the opposite was true - that board members were resisting attempts to reform the sector. 

They added that some of the BCA's current board members are likely to be reappointed when a new board is set up. 

When Times of Malta contacted board members on Friday morning, they declined to comment and said the authority would issue a statement in due course.  

Jonathan Attard had reform of the construction sector added to his ministerial portfolio earlier this year. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

The development follows the resignation of the authority's CEO Jesmond Muscat on Tuesday and less than three weeks after board member Robert Ellul Sciberras resigned, claiming paperwork was being prioritised ahead of safety. 

Both have not yet been replaced. 

It also comes in a week marred by two separate construction site incidents which left one worker dead and three others injured - though sources said they do not believe the resignation requests are linked to those cases. 

On Saturday, a worker died when a roof collapsed in Sliema and another was rushed to hospital, while on Friday morning two workers were injured when the roof of the Floriana property they were standing on gave way, plunging them three storeys.

The BCA was set up in 2021 in response to the death of Miriam Pace, whose home collapsed amid construction works on a site next door. 

But when worker Jean Paul Sofia died in another construction site incident in the Corradino Industrial Estate in 2022, top BCA officials said they had no oversight of the project. 

An inquiry into Sofia's death was scathing in its criticism of the BCA and other regulatory authorities and called for a complete overhaul of construction sector oversight and processes. 

Prime Minister Robert Abela has since appointed a cabinet committee made up of various ministers and his head of secretariat to steer the implementation of the inquiry's recommendations.    

One of the first changes to be implemented following that report was a government-led drive for the BCA to offer free advice by qualified architects, engineers and lawyers to people affected by construction projects next door. 

Government sources said various members of the current BCA board were not keen on that idea.