Malta: New construction regulations enter into force

The Maltese government has decided to press on with new construction regulations obliging construction site managers to be architects, despite their objections.

The announcement was made by Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg on Monday afternoon.

The Times reports that the main change, he said, would be the creation of site technical officers who would replace site managers. To date, site managers had technically been responsible for ensuring works followed approved plans.  However, complaints have arisen that these were not warranted professionals, and could even be the contractors themselves with no technical expertise whatsoever.

MaltaToday reports “Those who don’t want the responsibility know what they should do… everyone must shoulder responsibility,” Borg said.  The minister said that the new regulations would be published in Tuesday’s Government Gazette after which excavation and demolition works can resume, once the new conditions imposed by the new regulations have been satisfied.

The Malta Independent reports that “in a press conference on Monday, Minister for Transport, Infrastructure, and Capital Projects Ian Borg explained at length what the changes that the new law contains are, before also noting that this is only part of the reforms that will be implemented in the construction industry.”

Minister Borg noted that out of the 250 or so responses that the government had received from the consultation period, which lasted just five days, the word ‘responsibility’ was a central theme.  In fact, he said that through these new regulations the government is shouldering its share of responsibility, and called on other sectors to do the same.

Newsbook reports that the reforms will cover all construction sites once the new Legal Notice is published.

Via The Times, The Malta Independent, MaltaToday