Jean Paul Sofia’s family want the Corradino construction site where the 20-year-old died in December of last year to be turned into a garden. 

Prime Minister Robert Abela confirmed the family’s wishes in reply to a parliamentary question by PN MP Graziella Attard Previ. 

Sofia died when a construction site collapsed into a heap of rubble. Five people have since been charged with his involuntary homicide: the project’s two developers, the architect and the two directors of the contracting firm that was working on the site at the time. 

All five pled not guilty to the charges. 

Attard Previ asked the government whether it had any plans to erect a monument to Sofia that could be dedicated to all victims of construction and serve as a “symbol against the greed and selfishness that is destroying people’s lives”. 

In his reply, Abela said that the government is “open to the idea” of turning the site into a garden, per the family’s wishes. 

The land on which the incident occurred within the Corradino Industrial Estate is government-owned.

This particular detail is under scrutiny as part of the public inquiry into Sofia’s death, which is looking into whether there was a link between the land transfer and the building collapse.

In its broader scope, the inquiry is also investigating whether safety standards meant to prevent deaths and injuries are seriously integrated into the entire construction industry and whether the country has policies in place that adequately mitigate the risk of injury or death in the construction industry as much as possible. 

Officials from INDIS Malta - the government entity that oversees the country’s industrial parks - have testified to the public inquiry board that there was nothing suspicious about the land transfer to developers Kurt Buhagiar and Matthew Schmebri to build a furniture factory. 

The government had initially resisted the Sofia family’s calls for a public inquiry into the death, with the prime minister insisting that the outcome of the magisterial inquiry would be sufficient in the pursuit of justice. 

Government MPs even voted to veto a request for an inquiry, triggering a nationwide outburst of anger that culminated in large crowds gathering in front of the office of the prime minister at Castille to protest the decision. 

Mere hours before the planned protest was scheduled to start, Abela announced a u-turn on the public inquiry decision, four days after his own MPs shot down the idea in parliament. The public gathering went ahead nonetheless as a vigil for Sofia.