Many Maltese were unaware of their legal obligations relating to health and safety, Opposition MP Marthese Portelli told Parliament on Tuesday.
Speaking in the second reading of the debate amending the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, Dr Portelli said that often, they did not know that anybody commissioning a development project had to engage a project supervisor for health and safety, and that the buck stopped with the person commissioning this development, not with the contractor.
She referred to the OHSA’s registry of competent persons, and asked whether this was exhaustive and publicly accessible.
The amendments would extend health and safety regulations to the disciplined corps, which are currently exempt.
Minister Helena Dalli said various discussions had been held with these bodies and the Armed Forces were already engaging project supervisors for construction projects, even though health and safety regulations did not yet apply to them.
Dr Portelli asked for information on the sort of filtering carried out when persons registered themselves as “competent”. She questioned why the government felt it necessary for a competent person to be responsible for health and safety on projects for which it issued a tender, but not for all projects including private projects.
Following Tuesday’s publication of new regulations governing excavation and construction works, Dr Portelli added that it was an opportune moment to carry out a similar exercise with respect to health and safety regulations.
She called for the introduction of an accredited training requirement as an alternative to attendance training. Even in this sector, employers were obliged to ensure that adequate training was being provided to employees.
The OHSA should insist upon adequate training and resources for every employee, she said, but if the government wanted the authority to function properly, it needed to provide it with the necessary human resources.
Considering that 10,500 permits had been approved by the Planning Authority in 2018, the OHSA should be carrying out at least 10,500 on-site inspections, but there were insufficient personnel for this to be possible.
Where possible, automation should be employed to maximise resources, such as in cases where the necessary documentation was not promptly filed by developers or contractors.
Opposition MP Beppe Fenech Adami said the country had recently regressed when it came to health and safety. He read out a list of accidents which had been reported in the media since November 2018, calling these accidents a “certificate” of the country’s failure in the sector.
Questioning why so many workers were suffering injuries on construction sites, he said it was obvious that the construction frenzy which had gripped the country was to blame, and that the regulations which existed were not being enforced.
Workers were not being sufficiently trained, and it was no excuse to blame them for refusing to use safety equipment. They needed to be encouraged to respect themselves and others by using the proper equipment without this having to be enforced, he said.
Opposition MP Toni Bezzina said residents had almost become afraid of living in their homes, a situation resulting from the fact that the government had dragged its feet for years. The construction boom had started six years ago, but the government had failed to anticipate what would be needed on the level of regulation and enforcement.
The director of the Building Regulation Office had stated that he wished to do more to combat current problems, Mr Bezzina said, but there were insufficient resources for this to be possible. Officers entrusted with enforcement were “toothless”.
Mr Bezzina criticised the government for not consulting architects before publishing new regulations governing the construction industry on Tuesday. He called for a safety net to be put in place to assist those suffering damages to their homes as a result of works neighbouring their homes.