The recently launched regulations for the construction sector are very clearly a rush job.

We are not the only ones saying this. In fact, the heads of the two main stakeholder groups in the sector – the Chamber of Architects and the Malta Developers Association – have said pretty much the same thing.

Speaking on Indepth last week, Simone Vella Lenicker, the president of the Kamra tal-Periti, stated that the new law was passed too quickly, without consideration to the impact it would have, for example, on existing contracts.

Not enough studies were undertaken to see what the impact of these new regulations would have on ongoing projects, she said.

The regulations were drawn up after a short, five-day consultation period. The exercise itself was an emergency measure that was required after the government halted all construction projects following a number of building collapses.

The government told us that it had received more than 250 submissions during the consultation period, but the KTP, one of the main lobbies in the field, said it was not properly consulted. In fact, a meeting to clarify several issues was held on Thursday afternoon – three days after the rules came into force.

Vella Lenicker told this newsroom that one of the main issues now is that there are simply not enough architects to cater for the demand created by the new regulations. The issue here is that, Site Technical Officers (previously Site Managers) have to be warranted periti, a requirement that was not in place before. This means that more architects now have to be engaged at STOs at Malta’s 2,500+ construction sites. It also means that many Site Managers have ended up jobless.

PM Muscat said yesterday that other professionals will be able to work as STOs but the law, in its current form, clearly states that STOs have to be warranted architects.

Because of all the confusion and lack of resources, the entire construction industry ground to a halt on Monday and Tuesday. This will undoubtedly have had a major impact on one of Malta’s major economic sectors, which had already been shut down for a number of days when Prime Minister Muscat announced a moratorium.

Another worrying factor highlighted by Vella Lenicker is the fact that the requirements set by the new rules – particularly the requirement for additional studies and surveys – is set to lead to even higher property prices. As usual, the consumer will be bearing the brunt of decisions taken hurriedly by politicians.

There is also confusion when it comes to surveying of third party properties adjacent to construction sites where excavation has to take place. While the concept makes sense – after all these regulations were sparked off by the collapse of a number of third party properties – one still has to see how periti can actually survey the foundations of already inhabited residences.

While time was of essence in the drafting of these regulations, since the construction industry, which employs tens of thousands of people, could not remain at a standstill, it is very clear that five days was too short a period to draft regulations that affect not just the sector but the entire country.

Once again we have seen an exercise where proper consultation was not carried out, where decisions were taken without proper foresight and where the implementation was carried out in a hasty way, leading to massive confusion.

We are now hearing rumours that some contractors are actually forcing architects to declare building sites as safe without doing the proper studies, threatening to find someone else if they don’t comply.

We truly hope that these are only rumours and that, if they aren’t, the authorities deal with this behaviour swiftly.

We also hope that the government takes the necessary measures to fine-tune these regulations, and to ensure that the consumer does not end up paying extra over the already inflated property prices.