BCA to enforce safety cards
BICC chairperson Charles Buhagiar said the Building and Construction Agency will eventually be enforcing the safety cards protocol. We are hoping this protocol will become mandatory, including health and safety cards as being obligatory for people entering a site,” Buhagiar said.
“This course does not, in any way, exempt contractors from legal obligations related to health and safety. The course is only meant to highlight risks on-site. The contractor is still obliged to take measures to make sure the workplace is safe for everyone,” Buhagiar said.
Malta Developers Association academy chief Ray Abela briefly described the e-construct certification course offered by the MDA.
The first of 933 residents and staff members at care homes for people with a disability received their first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday.
Eight residents living at the Villino Maria residential home in Mtarfa run by Aġenzija Sapport were vaccinated, together with seven staff members at the home.
They are the first people within licensed Aġenzija Sapport homes to receive a vaccine jab.
From left to right: Permanent secretary Matthew Vella, minister for inclusion and social wellbeing Julia Farrugia Portelli, Aġenzija Sapport CEO Ruth Rose Sciberras. Photo: Julian Delia
Inclusion Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli said that vaccination was essential for residents, who have been struggling with isolation.
The number of building-related companies continues to increase with each passing year, although different sets of statistics paint divergent pictures of the size of the sector. Report:
Julian Delia
While National Statistics Office (NSO) figures indicate that there were 8,980 construction-related business units in 2019, data held by the Malta Business Registry lists 125 companies engaged in construction-related activities last year.
Figures held by construction lobbyists, the Malta Developers’ Association (MDA), indicate just over 600 operators in the sector, who have become members, all of them being either contractors or developers.
The differing figures, a result of each entity measuring sectoral operators in a particular way, shed light on the challenges of quantifying business activity in a sector that remains loosely regulated, despite being a main economic driver .
Borders between the UK and the EU are no longer as open as they were a few days ago. How does the historic divorce impact people and goods?
Julian Delia provides a quick guide.
Travelling to the UK
Maltese citizens, just like all EU citizens, can visit the UK with a national ID card up until October 2021. After that, passports will be accepted for a total visiting period of six months.
Those who wish to live and work in the UK will now have their applications processed via a new points-based system.
The Maltese may have a slight advantage here.
A global pandemic, two leadership elections, and the continuing repercussions of a journalist’s murder: it has been a tumultuous year. But it wasn’t always the big stories that left their mark on Times of Malta journalists. Here they choose the stories that resonated most with them in 2020.
A windfarm in Montenegro
Jacob Borg
Having written countless stories about corruption over the years, there was one in 2020 that stood out for its immediate political impact.
The Montenegro wind farm story showed how businessman Yorgen Fenech’s secret company 17 Black was quietly used to profit from a project that had long been mired in suspicions of corruption.