Regulating the building industry requires the political will to act in an industry that has repeatedly opposed and defied regulation. Last week’s fatal accident at St Ignatius Junction in Sliema is the latest accident in an industry in which regulation is still opposed. The political will to regulate is lacking notwithstanding all the government theatrics, day in day out.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) submitted his resignation on Tuesday. This will lead to the appointment of a third CEO in as many years. This is a resignation that has been submitted out of frustration, even though the resignation letter has not been published.
This resignation followed the comments of Robert Abela, Prime Minister, who on Sunday, a few hours after the accident, acknowledged that the authorities regulating the building industry do not have sufficient resources to carry out their responsibilities and regulate the industry. However, he failed to state or acknowledge that those whom his government appointed to lead the BCA have time and again requested these resources. The government has, so far, repeatedly ignored these requests.
When giving evidence at the Jean Paul Sofia public inquiry, the former CEO of the BCA, Karl Azzopardi, stated that he had repeatedly requested funds for a staff complement of 300 to regulate the industry through inspections and enforcement. The recruitment process was slow and the funds allocated rarely matched what he considered necessary.
From Azzopardi’s evidence at the public inquiry, it results that there were only 11 inspectors at the BCA against a projected requirement of between 40 and 50. In addition to recruitment, he explained that there was also the requirement to train those selected meticulously, as otherwise, they would not be in any way effective.
Karl Azzopardi was squeezed out of his CEO post by the incoming Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, who preferred his own man, Jesmond Muscat, who, however, resigned earlier this week. The BCA, in the meantime, is still without adequate resources as the Prime Minister’s words have so far not been matched with the allocation of the required resources.
The lack of resources allocated to the BCA is a major contributor leading to the frequent construction incidents which are becoming a too frequent occurrence. Without funds for the BCA to hire and train staff to carry out its regulatory duties, we may have more incidents in the weeks and months to come. There is a political responsibility to be shouldered for this lack of funding of the BCA. Prime Minister Robert Abela tried to transmit the subtle message that Minister Zrinzo Azzopardi was shouldering this by removing the building industry portfolio from his ministerial responsibilities in the last Cabinet reshuffle.
This is however not enough.
The BCA is once more without a CEO, who is quite obviously fed up with being treated as a political football by those appointing him. His letter of resignation was not published, but its timing gives a clear message which cannot be ignored.
As results from the Sofia inquiry report, the BCA inspectorate was made up of eleven persons! An identical number of persons make up the BCA Board of Directors! Those are the government's BCA priorities at this point.
When the government starts adequately funding the BCA, then maybe we can have an inspectorate that acts proactively to identify the abusers in the industry before they lead to more deaths.
An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta. [email protected] , http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com