Safety inspectors called to same construction site twice in a week

Workplace safety officers were twice called to the same construction site within the space of a week, following separate reports of workers operating at height without safety equipment.

The Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) first visited the Santana Hotel in St Paul's Bay on Tuesday after a video emerged on social media showing construction workers operating on the hotel roof, apparently without safety equipment or barriers, during evening hours and amid strong winds.

Despite finding everything “in order” that day, investigations were continuing into the incident, a spokesperson for the authority said, adding that while the incident occurred last Saturday, it was only notified about the incident three days later.

But on Thursday, the OHSA was again called to the hotel, when it encountered a “similar” situation with a separate contractor. The project supervisor was the same in both instances.

A spokesperson for the authority told Times of Malta the OHSA was “not happy to have a similar complaint on the same site” and that investigations were proceeding.

'No issues'

A spokesperson for contractor G&P Borg Limited, whose employees were working on the roof during the first incident, disputed that the site had been without safety barriers, pointing to vertical steel poles lining the roof, visible in the video, as protecting the workers.

He said the OHSA had found “no issues” when it visited, aside from some “housekeeping and minor amendments”.

While operations at the site had initially been paused due to strong winds, the company decided to press ahead when the wind did not die down, the spokesperson said, stressing the works underway were time-sensitive.

He said the workers had been casting a lift shaft and adjacent slab in concrete at the time of the incident, arguing it was not possible to pause the works due to not wanting to allow the concrete to set.

“We take safety very seriously,” he said.

The hotel said the OHSA had issued a stop work order since the incidents. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli.

Asked about the second incident, the spokesperson said it was the responsibility of a different contractor. It is not clear which of the other three contractors listed as working at the site was on the scene during the second incident.

'Management will be more vigilant'

Works at the hotel (PA/08577/24) are focused on expanding it by adding a floor and reconfiguring the layout of various floors to add an additional seven rooms to its existing 252 ones. The hotel is owned by Sunroute Hotels.

Santana Hotel management said it “immediately took up the matter with the contractor and officers in charge” after becoming aware of the video, and that its management “considers health and safety of utmost importance and does not take any report it receives on the matter lightly”.

It said the OHSA had since issued a stop work order so that “any identified shortcomings are immediately addressed”.

The hotel said that while safety measures had “been in place since day one... management will certainly be more vigilant on the works being carried out by the various contractors”, adding that no incidents had taken place since it began work in November.

Reports about workers operating at height at sites across Malta are regularly lodged with health and safety authorities: in April last year, the OHSA “urgently” dispatched inspectors to a Michael Stivala construction site after workers were spotted on the roof without harnesses.  

And in July, also in St Paul’s Bay, an unharnessed worker was photographed standing on “outrageous” scaffolding some six floors up while painting a building. 

Authorities halted works at a St Julian’s construction site the following month after shocking footage emerged showing a young girl outside on the top floor of the site, peering down over a stack of concrete bricks barely reaching her waist.

There were four fatal workplace accidents in the first six months of last year, according to the most recently available data from the National Statistics Office. There were over 1,000 non-fatal accidents, with almost 14% in the construction sector.