Former employee films ‘hazardous and unsanitary’ state of asylum seekers’ living quarters
David Darmanin
An amateur video taken by an electrician who was temporarily employed at the Marsa open centre has revealed the deterioration of the premises in which asylum seekers are housed.
The building, which formerly housed a school, is government-owned but the running of the centre is subcontracted to Fondazzjoni Suret il-Bniedem, an NGO.
Roger Langley said he was so appalled by the way health and safety issues are handled at the centre that he “no longer wanted to be part of it”.
Before tendering his resignation, Langley filmed a 10-minute video of those areas of the centre “that are not shown to visitors”.
Langley, an American citizen, became involved with Suret il-Bniedem 18 months ago – first as a volunteer and then as an employee.
He said no action has been taken at the open centre after various professionals, staff, residents and volunteers complained about the “hazardous and unsanitary state of the premises”.
Langley also said that the open centre was rat infested, and that little is done to prevent such pests from feeling welcome in the building.
Because bathrooms are either un-tiled or have missing tiles, drainage leaking from toilets and showers seeps in through the ceilings, causing severe damage to the structure.
Kitchens are small, unequipped and some lack basic sanitary facilities such as water supply or even drains.
And although €40,000 was recently spent on the floor of the in-house restaurant, unprotected sewage mains are still passing right through the kitchen – which is itself inadequately equipped and lacks basic sanitary features. The open boundary surrounding the restaurant is filthy, and rodents’ faeces can be seen.
Langley said “the final straw” was the state of Room 20, until recently used as a dormitory. As seen in the video, the water from an overlying bathroom seeps through the walls, causing a water-drenched ceiling that produces stalactites, “indicating that water has been seeping through it for years on end,” Langley said.
“In a failed attempt to do something about the situation at Room 20, the person in charge of maintenance installed panels of corrugated sheeting, to act as a false ceiling underlying the water-drenched beams,” he explained. “The sheeting also serves as a funnel for water to flow into a tilted half-pipe – draining the water into a vertical conduit to uselessly discard water back onto the floor.”
Langley said that when he took up the issue of safety hazards of this room with the centre’s management, which is headed by Oliver Gatt, he was told that the problem was due to “a deal with the ministry”.
“I could not understand what he (Gatt) meant by this, since the centre is taken care of by the organisation under the terms of a contract signed with government. There are budgets in place for maintenance.
“When the centre takes in visitors, they are never taken to see the quarters,” he said. “In a recent visit by the Swedish Ambassador for instance, management only showed the education centre and the new restaurant floor. It is obvious that there is a strong desire to hide some other areas of the centre.”
Retired architect Anthony Mangion, who volunteers at the centre, had also inspected the building and made his recommendations to Suret il-Bniedem, but when contacted by MaltaToday yesterday, he opted not to comment about the situation.
Sources also informed this newspaper that Health Authorities are aware of the situation, but no undertaking has so far been issued against the foundation.
“MEPA officers too had come to inspect the centre, and they weren’t very happy with what they saw,” Langley said.
“Ahmed (Bugrè, Oliver Gatt’s assistant) had informed me that MEPA officers were due to visit the centre to inspect for safety in relation to an application that had been submitted for the installation of a lift. He had instructed me to ask them to leave if I ever saw them in the premises. How I was expected to do that remains a mystery.”
On the number of pests that inhabit the building, Langley said that he had seen “rats the size of cats”.
“Rats are not even scared of people there,” he said. “I’ve seen ones looking at me as though they were asking me what I was doing there.”
Asked whether there had been any efforts to redress on the part of management, Langley said: “There evidently is no desire to even instill a culture of health and safety, let alone to do something about the situation at hand. There have been some initiatives though. Oliver (Gatt), Ahmed (Bugrè) and I had gone up to Brussels to see how they do things at an open centre there. But although there was a lot to learn from, everything we saw ended up being dismissed.”
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