The outgoing CEO of the health and safety authority feels the watchdog was always kept small and not given enough resources because politicians feared too much enforcement would stifle the economy and irk businesses people.

Mark Gauci has been at the helm of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) since its inception 22 years ago.

Among other tasks, the watchdog is responsible for inspecting workplaces to ensure they adhere to health and safety rules. And as he prepares to retire in the next few days, he says he would have liked to see the OHSA grow stronger, but it was not in the interest of some people in politics and in business.

“OHSA needs resources from politicians. And politicians decide on those resources according to the feedback they get from stakeholders. One of the reasons why the OHSA remained small was because there were people who objected to a strong and well-resourced OHSA, because it wasn’t in their interest,” Gauci told Times of Malta in an interview.

“I’m not referring to a particular politician but, in their psyche, politicians think the OHSA’s work stifles the industry and the economy.”

OHSA ‘left on its own’ for 22 years

He said the OHSA was “left on its own” for 22 years, and every improvement to health and safety in the workplace during the last two decades was down to the authority’s efforts, and nobody else’s.

Unions and employers’ associations often drag their feet to cooperate with the OHSA, even on awareness campaigns in the workplace, he said, and most of the public discourse on the necessity of health and safety is nothing more than lip service, because when push comes to shove, there is a lot of “behind the scenes work” to hold the OHSA back.

“On one occasion, a prime minister who was observing that the OHSA was working actively, told me, ‘you’re going to cause us to lose the election’. He seriously told me this during a social event,” he said.

Gauci would not name the prime minister and would not say whether he was Labour or Nationalist but suggested he might drop the name in a future memoir, if he ever writes one.

The outgoing CEO of the health and safety authority says he would have liked the OHSA to grow stronger, but it was not in the interest of some people in politics and in business. Shutterstock picture.

Gauci has also been trying to change health and safety laws to allow the authority’s officers to dish out harsher fines and prosecute rogue employers more effectively in court.

One of the reasons why the OHSA remained small was because there were people who objected to a strong and well-resourced OHSA, because it wasn’t in their interest- Outgoing OHSA CEO Mark Gauci

He said the current law only allows OHSA to hand out a maximum fine of €466 – which is hardly a deterrent for wealthy employers – and magistrates who find employers guilty of serious, criminal health and safety infringements that lead to the death of a worker, often let them off with a €2,000 or €3,000 fine. And if the worker is injured, the fine is just a few hundred euros.

“The law allows magistrates to hand out sentences of up to two years in prison, but they don’t. Maybe one or two get a prison sentence every year, and in all cases it’s a suspended sentence, so they never actually go to prison,” he said.

“We’re working to change that because there are cases where we would have prosecuted an employer who likely abused a worker by paying him the least possible salary and failed to provide him with health and safety training and equipment, and then the worker dies, and the employer gets away with a fine.”

Gauci spoke to Times of Malta last week after he appeared twice before the Jean Paul Sofia public inquiry board this summer.

During the hearings, he said the OHSA did not inspect the Corradino site and could not have done anything to avoid Sofia’s death because its inspectors do not have the competency to know if a building is being constructed according to the rules and standards of the trade.

A Times of Malta editorial followed, saying the OHSA is “reactive”, “practically useless” and that Sofia’s mother did more for health and safety in the construction industry than the OHSA achieved in its two-decade existence.

Gauci was not happy with that analysis and sat down for an interview with Times of Malta in which he defended the authority’s work, and said most criticism levelled at it is not fair.

He explained how his inspectors do their best within the parameters of the law but argued they cannot be held responsible for workplace deaths.

Read and watch the entire interview with Mark Gauci online on Monday