The report of the public inquiry into the Kordin tragedy in 2022, which resulted in the death of Jean Paul Sofia and the serious injury of five other workers, has just been published.

According to the report, the “added value to an inquiry of this type, is the fact that government decided to submit the operations of State Agencies to scrutiny and judgement by the board”.

As the ex-CEO of one such State agency, I can only analyse that part of the report dealing with the agency for which I was responsible, namely the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA), and occupation health and safety (OHS) in general.

I will state at the outset that in so far as OHSA and OHS are concerned, the inquiry board failed miserably. It not only ignored or dismissed the evidence and the informed opinion of experts but made a number of unsubstantiated claims.

In justification of its argument that OHSA was somehow responsible for the lack of scrutiny in how the building was being constructed, the board referred to a specific set of regulations – the Workplace (Minimum Health and Safety Requirements) Regulations (S.L. 414.15) – and quoted the references to structural safety.

What escaped the members of the board is the fact that the regulations cited do not apply to temporary and mobile work sites (otherwise known as construction sites); the board’s conclusion is therefore invalidated.

The board also failed because it did not identify which entity is or was responsible for structural safety at the time of the Kordin tragedy. It limited itself to stating that no entity assumed responsibility.

However, tellingly enough and if proof was ever needed, a few days before the publication of the report, the government announced amendment regulations regarding free-standing structures to “clear any uncertainties” – these amendments were to be issued under the Building and Construction Act, and not under the OHSA Act.

Frankly I fail to understand why there should be any uncertainties in the first place – all the board members had to do was to read article 3 of the Building and Construction Act, CAP 623, to understand which entity is responsible.

Before I started giving witness to the board, I felt it was opportune to make the preamble that in the interests of objectivity and scientific rigour, I was going to refer to statistics, and although I may sound insensitive, one must not forget that behind every tragedy there is a human being. This is all recorded in the inquiry report.

The board used my statement to castigate the OHSA, which “should descend from the ivory tower which it built for itself, and to start considering accidents not as numbers but as tragedies which break families”.

The board made a recommendation concerning the University of Malta’s Bachelor in OHS and the recently launched diploma at MCAST. In this case it only heard the views of a university representative, without bothering to seek the views of OHSA on the matter.

The board recommended that the MCAST diploma should be scrapped.

The facts of the matter are very simple – the OHSA maintains that the basic entry qualification for those intending to provide a service to industry should remain a two-year diploma, rather than a five-year bachelor degree. Whoever wants may willingly continue reading for a bachelor degree. In other words, there is scope for both academic courses.

The inquiry board failed miserably- Mark Gauci

The board also interviewed a representative of project supervisors who said that the OHSA sometimes prosecutes supervisors after they voluntarily file a report of irregularities (at the site for which they are responsible) to OHSA. The implication of this is that once they file a report to OHSA, they should no longer be held responsible.

Without seeking any information from OHSA, the board concluded that the prosecution of supervisors should stop. For the record, OHSA only prosecutes negligent project supervisors, that is those who fail to ensure that hazards and risks are adequately addressed, and not those who seek OHSA assistance.

Several project supervisors, who are paid very handsomely, expect the OHSA to do their job for them, something which is seemingly being supported by the Board of Inquiry.

The board also ignored all statistical evidence presented to it, which it dismissed as academic. Data on inspections, accidents, prosecutions, fines, promotional activities, work with vulnerable communities and so on was all disregarded, as were all comparisons with other member states. Not because the information given is incorrect, but because the board members chose to rely on their biased, preconceived opinions, not on the facts.

This renders the report dangerous as it can lead to the wrong decisions being taken. Soon after the report was published, a government representative stated that construction activities will be under the oversight of a new government department.

This should be a non-starter for two reasons – OHS in construction is regulated by different sets of OHS regulations (all transposing EU directives and issued under the OHSA Act), and not just the Work Place (Minimum Health and Safety Requirements for Work at Construction Sites) Regulations.

Furthermore, the attorney general always intervened before OHSA’s time to stop judicial action from being taken by the Department of Labour (the OHS regulator at the time) against other government departments, citing the legal principle that an individual (the government in this case) cannot prosecute itself. If government proceeds with this course of action, then one should expect an infringement notice from the EU Commission.

The report is also highly disrespectful of those brave, committed OHSA employees who, although few in number, tirelessly toil to fulfil their responsibilities with integrity, sometimes at great risk, without much fanfare.

If one were to remove the theatrical posturing and drama from the report, one is left with no meaningful conclusions or recommendations concerning occupational health and safety. The report adds no value to the development of OHS in Malta.

I say this humbly, but as an expert and a professional in the field, with over 40 years of experience, I am obliged to speak the truth without mincing words. After all, the public has a right to know the truth, the motivation behind this inquiry in the first place.

The government, the opposition and all other interested parties would do well to keep this in mind.