BCA insists it has no responsibility for standalone construction sites

Malta’s fledgling building industry regulator, the BCA, is insisting it is powerless in monitoring the security of building structures.

In a statement in the wake of the sittings of the Jean Paul Sofia inquiry, probing the circumstances of the 19-year-old’s death in the Kordin building collapse in December 2022, and its wider ramifications, the BCA said its legal powers were strictly limited.

“The subsidiary laws that govern the BCA specifiy that their aim is to ‘limit environmental degradation through the management of construction by creating the least possible inconvenience to third parties, to minimise any risk to the public, to protect government and local council properties, and reduce as much as possible environmental damage’,” the Building and Construction Authority said.

“These rules state that they have ‘no consequence upon the responsibilities for the management of construction site as governed by other laws’.”

The BCA was reacting to statements to the inquiry by Michael Ferry, former CEO of the BCA’s predecessor – the Building Regulation Office – that the authority had to be responsible for standalone construction sites such as the Kordin build.

But the BCA’s CEO Jesmond Muscat has insisted that the authority is only legally empowered to monitor buildings that abut on third-party properties.

“It is a mistaken assumption that the BCA’s exclusive obligation is for building security – the laws that govern the authority only concern construction that abuts on other properties,” the BCA said.