The government has chosen to remain tight-lipped on the safety of Malta’s fireworks factories despite the latest explosion which took the life of another person just months after an explosion in Gharghur claimed five lives.
Following requests for comment, deputy prime minister and minister for home affairs and justice Tonio Borg is still refusing to divulge how many safety inspections were carried out in the past year on fireworks factories.
MaltaToday also asked Borg what steps government will be taking to increase safety in this sector following last week’s tragedy in Zurrieq.
But in a crisp one-sentence reply, the ministry only chose to reply to MaltaToday’s question on whether the government is implementing recommendations made by the Pyrotechnics Commission, an ad hoc commission set up to prepare recommendations on safety in the factories.
“The ministry is still awaiting the Pyrotechnics Commission’s report. The Commission informed us that the said report will be ready in the next few weeks,” a spokesperson told MaltaToday.
But the Commission has already recommended to Borg that two factories, the San Mikiel factory in Lija, the minister’s home constituency, and the Sant Andrija factory in Luqa be closed down because of the danger they pose to nearby residents and property since they are not sufficiently distant from public areas as required by the law.
The recommendations have not been made public by the minister, who has also in the past resisted releasing data on the number of safety inspections carried out by the Explosives Committee on fireworks factories.
The Committee had made similar recommendations in a report it handed the minister back in 2004 which has not yet been made public and the suggestions remain largely ignored.
On Monday Labour MP Evarist Bartolo also tabled a parliamentary question asking Tonio Borg to present the recommendations prepared by the Pyrotechnics Commissions.
Back in October, the minister had refused to table a list of the inspections carried out on fireworks factories, again when asked by Evarist Bartolo.
“I know it is kamikaze to take on the fireworks issue but I have no intention of letting this go. I will keep on following it up. It is madness that we mourn, then forget about the whole issue and then allow another incident to occur.”
Borg’s refusal to disclose the number of inspections carried out on fireworks factories in parliament was the latest refusal by Borg on divulging pertinent information related to the safety of the factories.
Back then, Bartolo had said the minister’s non-answer was ‘totally unacceptable’: “It is the non-answer of a scared minister who has something to hide and for whom votes come before people’s lives and security. It also means that the minister does not want to admit that the inspection system regarding fireworks factories is neither efficient nor consistent, and the minister does not want to answer my question to conceal this.”
Last August, an email erroneously sent to MaltaToday by the Home Affairs ministry revealed the government’s deliberate attempt at keeping under wraps a recommendation by another committee, the Pyrotechnics Commission, to relocate two fireworks factories over safety threats to nearby residents.
In the email addressed to Tonio Borg but mistakenly sent to this newspaper, communications coordinator Joe Azzopardi informed the minister that the MaltaToday journalist “keeps insisting, even after I sent the reply as drafted by Leonard Callus,” referring to the Prime Minister’s spokesperson, and continues: “Shall I ignore him?”
Subsequent requests for the information made to the Office of the Prime Minister could not be entertained because the information has not been released by Borg’s ministry.
In the tragic accident of 27 July, the St Helen’s factory in Gharghur went up in smoke leaving five men dead. It was later revealed that a decision by the Fenech Adami administration in 2001 to allow the St Helen’s factory to continue operating despite being in breach of distance requirements, was taken without ever consulting the Explosives Committee – the government watchdog on fireworks factories.
Meanwhile, Freddie Cassar, the 46-year-old man injured in Wednesday’s blast at St Catherine’s fireworks factory in Zurrieq, remains on the critical list. The other victim was Zaren Barbara, 62.
The explosion was confined to the area within the immediate zone of the room where the two enthusiasts are believed to have been mixing flash powder. The rest of the compound was at a safe distance away.
But sources told The Times that the way the building came apart had revealed that the room was not designed to control damage in case of an explosion, blowing the walls out and leaving the unsupported roof to fall flat, crushing Barbara.
The roof was said to have been too heavy to be blow away easily in an explosion, which would have limited death by crushing in case the roof falls down.