Updated 12.20 with PN call for inquiry - Alfred Sant has called for an administrative inquiry to determine who should shoulder responsibility for the structural problems at the Cospicua Home for the elderly that is to be rebuilt due to safety concerns.

The Labour MEP laid the foundation stone of the home in February 1997 when he was prime minister. It was inaugurated by Nationalist Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami in December 1999 and cost an estimated Lm2.5 million (€5.7 million).

“In the circumstances, I think an administrative inquiry should be carried out to establish the facts of how the project was decided and implemented, following which responsibilities for what occurred should be determined,” Sant said. “Given the time that has passed it will not be an easy thing to do but it should be attempted.”

Questions sent to the Active Aging Ministry, asking to identify the contractor and concrete supplier and whether anyone will be held responsible, remained unanswered by the time of writing.

The home at the heart of Cottonera houses 128 elderly people and the government is set to shut it down for extensive refurbishment. Earlier this week Active Aging Minister Jo-Etienne Abela explained that the government must rebuild parts of the Cospicua home because of faulty construction methods and because the concrete used in the ceiling “is not even fit for a simple pavement”.

But the decision has devastated the home’s residents, who have been asked to relocate.

Last week, they even hung bedsheets from the balcony with messages such as “we are not leaving here” and “the elderly are not disposable” written on them.

Shoddy work could be due to poor site supervision

Prof. Marc Bonello, who heads the university’s Department of Civil and Structural Engineering in the Faculty for the Built Environment, said to establish the extent of the damage, and whether the property should be demolished and rebuilt, it would be necessary to assess the structural concrete tests obtained. This would take into account the spatial variation of the test results within the whole property.

“It is very surprising that a building, which is only about 25 years old, would have been constructed with such poor concrete quality given the advances in quality assurance and control procedures in place on site within the local construction industry in recent decades,” he said.

Commenting about an image of a damaged ceiling published by Times of Malta earlier this week, Bonello said it clearly indicated extensive corrosion to the steel bar reinforcement in the slab, together with spalling of the concrete cover within large patches on the underside of the slab. This was due to lack of maintenance and/or the presence of leaking water pipes running over suspended slabs, he suggested.

While the technology to fix damage on site existed, one had to look into whether this made sense financially due to the high cost of such materials.

the safety of the residents of the Cospicua Home for the elderly is of paramount importance and, therefore, irrespective of whether the decision taken is to demolish and rebuild the home or to repair the concrete structure of the home, any risk of structural collapse and/or risk of injury due to falling structural debris is to be neutralised immediately- Prof. Marc Bonello, head, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Malta

“In any case, the safety of the residents of the Cospicua Home for the elderly is of paramount importance and, therefore, irrespective of whether the decision taken is to demolish and rebuild the home or to repair the concrete structure of the home, any risk of structural collapse and/or risk of injury due to falling structural debris is to be neutralised immediately,” he said.

Bonello added that in recent decades, most concrete structures have been built using ready mixed concrete designed to modern technical specifications and supplied by local ready mixed concrete plants, all of which are equipped with their own testing laboratories for proper quality assurance and control. 

“Local periti generally employ technical specifications, which require regular testing of all structural materials before and after use on a construction site. Therefore, sub-standard concrete in local construction should really be the exception rather than the norm, especially on large projects like the Cospicua Home for the elderly. 

“The fact that, at times, structural tests indicate sub-standard concrete could possibly be an indication of poor site supervision, where building contractors might be tempted to illicitly add water (rather than special purpose super-plasticisers) to ready mixed concrete supplied on site in order to facilitate the placement and workmanship of the concrete pouring process. 

'Uncertainty of future is deeply unsettling'

“The occurrence of these situations may be minimised by having, among others, an efficient technical site supervision team and a robust quality assurance and control system in place on site and also in the concrete batching plants, which supply the ready mixed concrete to the construction site, he said.

Meanwhile the residents have until next week to pick an alternative home and some say they are being told they cannot take personal appliances such as their fridges and kettles once they are relocated to a new home as there might not be sufficient space.

“At the moment I have my own room and in it I have my personal fridge. But once I move to a new home there is no guarantee I will have a room to myself so they are telling us we cannot take these things with us,” a woman in her 80s who has been living at Cospicua Home for over five years told Times of Malta.

A 71-year-old resident said the uncertainty of the future was deeply unsettling:

“I spent many years sharing a room. Whenever a roommate passed away or was moved I would hope that my next roommate was decent and that I would not have to clean after him. Now I have my own space, but this will not happen for long. It is devastating not knowing what our life will be like.”

Another resident said: “We are just emerging from two years of COVID and now we are presented with this uncertainty about our lives. I was brought up in Cospicua and being moved from here will shake my life as I know it.”

When the building was opened, Eddie Fenech Adami said that the government aimed that the elderly should, as far as possible, live in the same neighbourhood where they were brought up.

PN joins calls for inquiry

The Nationalist Party on Wednesday also called for an inquiry, saying it was needed to determine the real state of the home.  

Paula Mifsud Bonnici, shadow minister for the elderly, said that although Minister Abela had created alarm by saying that the home could collapse, elderly people were still living there. Although the minister had also spoken of the ceilings showing signs of damage last year, nothing had been done. 

Had damage been apparent why had nothing been done before, Mifsud Bonnici asked. She added that the inquiry also needed to determine what works were made on the home over the years and whether there had been shortcomings which led to a deterioration of the state of the building.   

Correction: An editing error in an earlier version of this story stated that the home was opened in December 1997.