PN calls for publication of investigation findings to improve workplace safety

The parts of workplace injury reports and investigations that shed light on how things could be improved should be made public, the Nationalist Party argued.

This would allow relevant sectors and industries to implement safer practices and learn from past mistakes, the party said.

Government-commissioned surveys and reports are, as a rule, very rarely published.

The PN was reacting to the latest fatal incident at a construction site in Qormi on Monday – the sixth this year alone.

The party also called for the strengthening of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) to be able to cope with the demand.

PN MPs Stanley Zammit, Ivan Castillo and Ryan Callus argued in a party statement that OHSA and the Building and Construction Authority need to be better equipped to deal with the number of active construction sites they are responsible for to watch.

They also called for a construction skills card idea to be implemented in a “serious” way. Discussions on a skills card for construction workers began in 2015. Four years later, in 2019, the government launched a skills card process, but certification is completely voluntary.

PN MPs also called for improved law enforcement and court processes to help reduce a massive backlog of OHSA-related court cases.

OHSA CEO Mark Gauci told The Times of Malta that around 600 reports he had filed for legal action over workplace safety had yet to be presented to a magistrate.