Updated 2.47pm with government reaction below.
Health inspectors have expressed concerns over food safety if plans to shift food inspections away from the health ministry are followed through.
On Thursday, the Malta Environmental Health Officers Association said it had been kept in the dark about planned changes over who will conduct food health inspections.
"All we know is that the food health sector is moving from the health ministry to the food agency under the agriculture ministry," association president Joseph Camilleri said.
"We don't know how food inspections will work in this agency and whether inspectors there need to have the same specialisation as we do," he said.
Around 90 health inspectors work in the sector of food safety, as well as other areas, like bay sanitation and port safety.
Currently, environmental health practitioners require a warrant to practice.
Several environmental health practitioners addressed a press conference on Thursday morning outside parliament. Representatives from the Public Health Laboratory also attended to express their support.
"We don't know if some of us will move to the new agency, and who would move when the shift happens," the association's public relations officer Aaron Simpson said.
Simpson said the MEHOA wants all environmental health practitioners under one roof within the health ministry.
"We are responsible for public health. It's in the name. Some of us not only have a diploma or a degree but also a post-graduate and masters," he said.
Simpson recalled how health inspectors were among the front liners during the pandemic.
"This is the thanks we get in return. Our profession is being threatened, and we have no idea what's going to happen," he said, pointing out that breaking up the inspectorate will also reduce workers' bargaining power.
Ministry defends move
In a reaction, the government said supervision of food safety had for years been fragmented between the agriculture, health and consumer affairs ministries and their various units.
In 2022 the Labour Party promised in its electoral programme that controls would be consolidated under one entity with the responsibility assigned to the agriculture ministry as the ministry whose portfolio includes food.
The Food Safety Commission was transferred to the agriculture ministry in 2022 and work started on the setting up of a new authority to be tasked with food safety and sustainability.
The authority will be formed by merging existing structures. The ministry insisted its setting up will strengthen the sector by bringing together all those involved in the surveillance of the food chain, as laid down in EU regulations.