Amid all the painful anecdotes shared by Carmel Pace in his interview on Sunday is his fear that the country will merely forget about the building collapse which killed his wife and crushed his life.
“I fear people will forget about what happened a year ago… I’m not calling for the death penalty. I just want to know whether there were any shortcomings by the institutions. Is that too much to ask?” he tells Times of Malta in his first interview since the tragedy a year ago.
Pace has become the face of the too many victims of construction accidents. He paid the ultimate price when he lost the love of his life and practically all his possessions.
In the months before his incident, there was Janet Walker, who lost her house in Guardamangia, Maggie Smith whose apartment was destroyed in Mellieħa… Too many victims remain unnamed, and the hall of shame sadly includes several construction workers, often rendered nameless in police media statements.
These victims instead found obstacles preventing them from establishing the truth and getting compensation.
The authorities should leave no stone unturned to ensure construction fatalities and incidents are reduced
Pace is right to express his trepidation about the tragedy being forgotten, especially when the news agenda continues to be dominated by COVID-19 and the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case. Nothing can ever bring Miriam Pace back, nothing can ever help the other victims (who managed to get away in time) to go back to their old homes. But the authorities should leave no stone unturned to ensure construction fatalities and incidents are reduced.
For starters, the authorities need to stamp out the too many cowboys with no experience who got involved in a sector for no other reason than to make a quick buck. Obtaining a permit to demolish and build blocks of flats remains too easy in a country which has become a veritable construction site – but that’s an argument for another editorial.
Prime Minister Robert Abela has promised a reform of a sector which is clearly impacting our quality of life, despite the boost it gives the economy. We have seen too many promises of swift and uncompromising action dissolve into the all-too-familiar silence, and the incidents have persisted. Apart from Pace, two other construction workers were killed in the last months and many others have been injured.
Meanwhile, the Malta Developers’ Association is pushing to have its own member on the new Building Consultancy Authority board. Many contractors feel they can still write their own rules and act with impunity because of the same political class they feed on.
Many were relieved to see the construction portfolio transferred to Aaron Farrugia, undoubtedly the one minister who appears to be conscious of the problems imposed by the sector.
Farrugia on Saturday announced an increase in the number of building inspectors and also said the government will soon be appointing a pool of technical experts that will increase the level of scrutiny on construction and excavation method statements.
Such measures bode well, but you cannot blame people for treating them with cynicism. The pledges of other ministers were often crushed by the developers and their clients who do their utmost to circumvent rules to cut costs.
The Pace family, which paid the ultimate price of a construction accident, needs to see a semblance of justice without further delay. The least the prime minister can do is to give the go-ahead for a public inquiry to take place.
The country needs to reboot its thinking about a sector perceived as a cash cow for several years but which could well end up being our Achilles’ Heel, especially in a post-COVID situation. The writing is on the wall.