The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) together with the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) have signed an agreement through which they will continue to provide greater security to third parties, workers and the public.
Among the main initiatives listed in this agreement, the two authorities will begin to carry out joint inspections at construction sites. This was announced at a press conference addressed by the Minister for Justice and Construction Sector Reform Jonathan Attard together with the Acting Chief Executive of the BCA, Architect Roderick Bonnici, and the Chief Executive of the OHSA Dr Josianne Cutajar.
This conference saw the signing of this agreement through which the Authorities concerned are establishing procedures for how these inspections will be carried out as well as how they should share information and investigation reports as necessary. It was explained how the outcome of the investigations should be forwarded to the Enforcement Authorities so that the necessary action can be taken.
Minister Attard said that last August the Authorities began working on a pilot project of joint inspections on construction sites, which project resulted in the clearest possible way in how necessary it was, such that the process has now been formalised in an agreement. “Since the last week of August, around 550 joint inspections have been carried out and from these it resulted that 134 actions were taken by BCA officers and 147 actions by OHSA officers. It is also worth noting that during these inspections, there were a number of instances where both OHSA and BCA had to take action on the same site,” the Minister explained. Minister Attard said that this initiative reflects the Government’s commitment to continue raising standards in the sector and this is also in line with the report of the public inquiry linked to the tragic death of Jean Paul Sofia.
