During last year’s budget reading, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana announced that the process for licensing building contractors should be started. We are a month away from the next budget reading and there are a lot more questions than answers surrounding the construction industry.

Contractors are certainly not a rare sight in Malta, and with every Tom, Dick, and Harry being given permission to knock down their homes and replace it with flats, they certainly haven’t been short of work.

However, actual regulation on their practices has been few and far between.

In his speech last October, Caruana had mentioned the importance of contractors being licensed in order to regulate the way buildings are built, their aesthetics and also imposing an ethical and responsible way of developing.

Although the factors mentioned above are important, the most important reason for introducing a licence on developers is the health and safety of the workers. Although one has to realise that construction is an inherently dangerous job, we must recognise that the industry has the second highest accident rate out of any occupation.

Throughout the year 2021, a total of 362 non-fatal work accidents occurred in the construction industry. This year alone – between January and June – a total of 151 accidents have already been reported, with two fatalities in the first four months.

As a country we have reached a point where these accidents are practically a daily occurrence, taken for granted, and that each victim – particularly if they are foreign – is just a number. There are faces behind these numbers and those faces have rights to as safe a work environment as possible with the proper equipment needed.

The construction industry boasts a workforce of over 17,000 people but it is still less regulated than other employment sectors with fewer workers. Considering it has the second highest non-fatal accident rate, it is about time something is done.

In his budget speech Caruana had said that the licensing system should enforce without fear and “strike abusers with an iron fist” and yet a year later we are in the same situation as we were before, with the promises made thus far being unfulfilled.

A dark cloud has been thrust onto the construction industry in the past years, with people falling to their deaths from great heights, houses collapsing, and even the case of a worker being left on the side of the road after sustaining serious injuries at a construction site.

Action in certain cases was not taken and some contractors continue as if that accident was merely another notch in the country’s statistics. With a proper licence and an impartial governing authority, there will be a higher risk of contractors not being allowed to work in the industry again, giving then all the more reason to do things properly – or rather, as they should have been done in the first place.

This definitely does not mean that all contractors fall under the same category but it is about time for the government, the Building and Construction Authority as well as the Occupational Health and Safety Authority to work together and finalise a properly structured agreement for a licensing method with everyone’s best interests at heart.