The widower of Miriam Pace was among several staff members forced to evacuate their offices at the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) after chunks of debris fell off the ceiling.
BCA employees told Times of Malta that Carmel Pace, who tragically lost his wife when their house in Santa Venera collapsed in 2020, was one of the workers who walked into work at the BCA one morning to find the floor covered in debris which came crashing down from the ceiling of their workplace.
Chunks of cement fell inside some offices, in the corridor and staircase, exposing the ceiling’s steel reinforcing mesh in some areas. Rain water also seeped into the building and trickled onto the desks.
No one was injured.
The incident happened last November but the details were kept under wraps.
The building, situated in Hornworks ditch in Floriana, is old and run down, and multiple sources confirmed it had been condemned for years because it was not structurally sound.
Thank God the debris fell when the building was empty because some pieces were big enough to kill us had they landed on our head during office hours- employee
“Thank God the debris fell when the building was empty because some pieces were big enough to kill us had they landed on our head during office hours,” one employee told Times of Malta.
The BCA is tasked with ensuring safe working practices in construction sites and with safeguarding third parties during construction projects.
It was established in 2021 on the recommendation of an inquiry into a construction site collapse that killed Miriam Pace in her own home.
Her widower, Carmel Pace, worked at the authority when the BCA incident happened in November. Pace could not be reached for comment.
Sources confirmed the dangerous areas were immediately cordoned off and workers were moved to two big halls in another building. They remained based there until the authority relocated its entire offices to another building on Spencer Hill in Marsa last week.
'Needed a more modern space that matches [its] ambition'
On its website, the authority told customers it had shifted premises because it outgrew the old building and that it needed “a more modern space that matches [its] ambition”.
Sources told Times of Malta that on the day of the incident, the authority’s administration took all the necessary action to safeguard workers, offered them the option to work from home and CEO Jesmond Muscat did his utmost to have staff relocated to the new offices as soon as possible.
Replying to questions from Times of Malta a BCA spokesperson said: “The BCA has always ensured the safety of its employees. When issues were noted in a part of its old premises (as the BCA is now housed in new premises) immediate action was taken. In fact, BCA employees were first relocated within the existing premises to ensure their safety and in the same week an adjacent property was acquired from another government entity to accommodate the workers accordingly.”
The spokesperson added that last year the BCA also implemented its plans to completely relocate to a new property. New premises were procured by tender and the relocation of the BCA has been finalised in the past two weeks, immediately after the works on the new property in Marsa were completed.