The Building and Construction Authority has issued 324 fines since it was established in 2021 according to information tabled in Parliament on Monday.

The information was tabled by Planning Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi in response to a parliamentary question by PL MP Katya de Giovanni.

De Giovanni asked for how many inspections the BCA carried out since its establishment and how many stop notices and fines it had issued.

Zrinzo Azzopardi said that a total of 20,546 inspections have been carried out by the authority from April 2021 to February 2023.

7,159 of these were in 2021, 10,298 were in 2022, and 3,089 were carried out in the first two months of this year.

A total of 324 financial penalties were handed out in the between January 2021 and February 2023: 76 of them were in 2021, 129 were in 2022, and 119 penalties have been imposed so far this year.

The BCA also issued a total of 573 stop notices to construction sites between January 2021 and the end of last month.  90 of these were in 2021, 350 were in 2022 and 133 have come this year.

The BCA was established with the aim of enforcing and regulating the construction industry.  However it has since received criticism for having a lack of resources to enforce the industry.