The licensing of contractors, while a positive step, will fail to reach its objective unless followed by proper enforcement of safety practices in the construction industry, President of the Malta Chamber of Construction Management Jesmond Chetcuti told The Malta Independent on Sunday in an interview.

The law is only as good as those who are in charge of enforcing it. The licensing of contractors has been a long time coming. It is a much-needed step to ensure that contractors stay in line and one hopes it would bring an end to the possibility of cowboys doing as they like.

But introducing licenses and enforcement need to go hand in hand, and one hopes that they will. Introducing such licenses is all well and good, but unless contractors are punished for breaching regulations it would be pointless.

One must point out that when the proposed regulations for the licensing of building contractors were presented and announced by Planning Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, he said that the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) would have the power to suspend and revoke licenses. It’s quite a power to have as, if a license is revoked, that contractor will not be able to work on any other site.

Now the fear of such a power should, in theory, make those who try and cut corners think twice. It should introduce more professionalism. But the test will come if and when a contractor does make a major breach. If appropriate action would not be taken at that time, then that would defeat the purpose of the whole process. When the rules do come into force, the BCA must be stern and take action when faced with breaches.

During his interview with this newsroom, Chetcuti pointed out a number of other things which need to be considered. He said that one of the problems is that a number of developers look for the cheapest, most of the time without knowing that cheaper prices means cheaper service and cutting corners in both quality and standards. “Some developers look only at the profits, going for ‘cheap’ contractors. By doing this, quality is sacrificed, standards are lowered and most of the time the welfare of the workers and even third parties suffers,” Chetcuti said. Chetcuti feels that reports by health and safety advisors who go to construction sites are often ignored. “These H&S advisors end up demotivated and their work is not appreciated,” Chetcuti said. He said that often, contractors turn a blind eye to the recommendations, as there is no proper enforcement. Chetcuti said that there are many contractors who work properly, and as a result feel disadvantaged as working up to standard may reflect in the price asked for to developers.

This is a serious problem and one wonders just why this situation has been allowed to persist.

If there is no proper enforcement now… then what is to guarantee that there will be proper enforcement once the licensing of contractors comes into force?  This is one sector where, not only should enforcement be adequate, but no expense should be spared. Enforcement agencies must not only be given the necessary powers to regulate a sector, but must be given all the necessary resources to ensure that they can do their job well. Construction is a dangerous industry and if there are contractors turning a blind eye to health and safety recommendations then action must be taken. In the future when the licensing comes into practice, such contractors should be heavily penalized for such action.

Chetcuti also said that scaffoldings have become ‘death traps’ rather than a safe working system, and it is not as easy as simply drafting a law about licensing of contractors and expect that all will be solved. “For a scaffold to be used, this should be certified by a competent person, which rarely happens. Even the workers erecting such structures, most of the time are not even trained or certified, thus we are allowing untrained workers to build a temporary structure whose purpose is to provide a safe system to work at height, but which is questionably built,” Chetcuti said.

Health and safety on construction sites must be a top priority.