Health and safety watchdog badly short of staff and funding, Nationalist MPs say

Nationalist Party MPs Claudette Buttigieg and Marthese Portelli have emphasised the Occupational Health and Safety Authority’s shortage of staff, as they underlined that the authority did not have enough employees to fully implement health and safety rules.

During this evening’s parliamentary sitting, discussing the OHSA - where the Authority’s chairperson Manuel Mallia acknowledged that more manpower was needed - Buttigieg and Portelli said the Authority’s staff were doing “miracles” with the resources available to them, despite that fact that it was running on a “shoestring budget”.

Both MPs expressed their disappointment that the discussion had been opened by Labour MP and OHSA chairperson Manuel Mallia, saying that this created an anomaly which decreased the strength of scrutiny which should exist when Parliament discussed such an authority.

“The chairperson’s salary is costing the OHSA €22,659,” Buttigieg said, “…if you take into consideration all the salary costs of the chairperson’s office and the Authority’s Board, these total €75,000.”

“It’s somewhat rich of the chairperson to say the Authority needs more workers, when he is costing it so much money,” she said, “With €75,000, four additional health and safety inspectors could be employed. I believe the OHSA is mixing up its priorities.”

Buttigieg asked why the Board, which had not executive powers, had suspended all new recruitment, despite the fact that more employees were sorely needed. She also questioned why the Authority’s new collective agreement for its workers had not yet been agreed upon.

Echoing the two MPs views, fellow PN MP Edwin Vassallo said it made not sense that, while the number of jobs and construction sites had grown in Malta, the Authority had not increased its workforce.

“I place the onus of responsibility for this on the government, which is funding, or not funding, the Authority,” Vassallo said, adding that calls for increasing the OHSA’s human resources had fallen on deaf ears, and the chairperson was “subduing” the Authority.

Single workplace fatality in 2017 - Helena Dalli

Equality Minister Helena Dalli, under whose remit the OHSA falls, said that the OHSA could not be the “be all and end all”, and that employers also had to invest in occupational health and safety, unions had to educate their members on their rights, and employees themselves had to co-operate with safety measures.

In 2017, there had been a single workplace fatality in Malta, while there had been six in 2016, she said. The last fatality happened in January 2017.

The sector with the largest number of injuries was the one related to transport and haulage, she pointed out, which saw more such accidents than the construction sector.

“If all do their part with regard health and safety, the number of accidents and fatalities will keep going down,” she said.

“Recruitment has been paused because the business case for more employees is being undertaken, together with the Finance Ministry. Discussions on the collective agreement are also drawing to a close.”

Dalli explained that she had not opened the debate herself as she was hosting a government minister from Macedonia who is on a visit to Malta.

“When you have an MP as a chair, this adds accountability,” Dalli said, reacting to the concerns on Mallia’s opening of the discussion shown by MPs Buttigieg and Portelli.

Manuel Mallia: injuries and fatalities show downward trend

Mallia previously underscored that, statistically speaking, since the OHSA was set up in 2002, injuries and fatalities had gone down.

“The point of the Authority is to educate people to act within the regulations, to promote the importance of health and safety, and to emphasise the importance of a worker returning home safe, because his safety is protected by regulation,” Mallia said.

He said the Authority had formulated an information campaign for foreign workers, with preparations being underway for this to be put in place.

It was also working on creating an online interactive risk assessment, implementing a European-level initiative whereby a health and safety evaluation could be carried out by employers - such as those in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises - online.

Former chairperson Deo Debattista remarked that foreign authorities which had the same workload as the OHSA, had three times as many employees, yet the Authority still managed to do a good job.

“There hasn’t been a single loss of life on the workplace in the last 17 months,” he said, “However there were 3,000 injuries reported in 2017, and to this one also has to add the number of workers suffering from work-related illnesses.”

He said that despite the positive figures, even one fatality was one too many.