Property developers have criticised a Church-led study that concluded that Malta’s construction sector prioritises speed over workers’ wellbeing and safety.
The Malta Development Association said the study, titled ‘The ejja ejja culture’, was based on an unrepresentative sample and made next to no mention of key challenges that the industry is facing.
“Lack of supply of workers is barely mentioned in the study, even though it is one of the main reasons for the problems identified, namely the daily struggle with deadlines,” the MDA said on Friday. “This is clearly due to not having enough workers engaged in the industry, with social pressure mounting on government to introduce even more barriers to entry of foreign workers.”
The MDA said it was also unimpressed by the study attributing deadline-related pressure to property developers, arguing that in reality, it is contractors “who bite more than they can chew” that are responsible for such situations.
It also took umbrage at the fact that the study did not acknowledge that wages in the construction sector “compare well and in some cases are higher than other manual labour industries in the economy”.
Many undocumented construction sector workers “refuse to be registered”, the MDA said, as they do not want to lose the protection status they will have received in another European country.
It said the research would have been more accurate and thorough had its authors shared their conclusions for feedback with the MDA before publication “rather than selectively using short extracts of interviews throughout.”
Those criticisms notwithstanding, the developers’ lobby said the study was a positive development as it encouraged policymakers to make decisions based on data “rather than hunches”.
Authors made several “very valid observations” about the need for everyone to follow the rules, they said, adding that they were also pleased to see the study’s authors call for mandatory insurance policies for contractors – something the MDA has emphasised ever since contractor licencing rules were published.