A confidential report proposing badly needed measures to make fireworks production safer remains ignored a year after being submitted to the government, a reliable army source has told The Times.
Since the recommendations were made, by the explosives committee, three fireworks factories have blown up and four men have lost their lives in these explosions. A fifth died in an accident at another factory.
The source said the authorities' failure to take action on the proposals means that the activity is still largely unregulated.
The explosives committee is the body responsible for overseeing fireworks production but it acts merely as a consultative body and does not have enforcement powers.
Its report pointed out that despite the fact that the activity is covered by a tailor-made act, The Explosives Ordinance, there is no system or body in place to see that these regulations are being adhered to.
The committee recommended a review of the state of fireworks factories and the setting up of a team of experts who would be able to perform random spot-checks to verify that the regulations are being strictly adhered to.
The regulations governing fireworks factories stipulate that stores should be separated from rooms in which the fireworks are produced.
The committee is informed that a number of factories do not operate according to these specifications, the source said. However, in the absence of an enforcement arm, nothing can really be done about these breaches.
The only checks now performed on fireworks factories are those carried out by the Civil Protection Department when the licence of a factory is renewed or a new one issued. The check, however, does not deal with whether the premises conform to the regulations, CPD Chief Peter Cordina told The Times.
"We make sure that the place is properly equipped in terms of fire fighting equipment and that there is good access for fire engines in the case of an explosion," Mr Cordina said.
Explosions at fireworks factories made the headlines a number of times this summer. Three men died from injuries they sustained on July 5 when blasts ripped through the factory of St Joseph's De Rohan Band Club in Wied Qirda, Siggiewi.
On the night of August 19 the Gharb fireworks factory was razed to the ground by a violent explosion that took place when no one was around. And last month, a 58-year-old man from Balzan died at the St Gabriel fireworks factory in Iklin after a mixture of explosives he was handling blew up in his hands.
In another type of accident, a man from Qormi was crushed to death by a press he was cleaning at the St Sebastian factory in Wied ic-Cawsli, Qormi at the end of July.
The Times had sent a series of questions about the issue to the Home Affairs Ministry but were redirected to the Parliamentary Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister, Tony Abela. The secretariat's staff then directed The Times to the explosives committee, which pointed the newspaper back to Dr Abela.
Contacted on the phone, Dr Abela said he could not answer the questions himself.
However, when asked whether he could tell this to Brigadier Carmel Vassallo, who chairs the explosives committee, he declined, asking whether he should take orders from a journalist.
Among other things, The Times asked the authorities whether fireworks factories are subject to random checks verifying that the conditions of the licence granted to these factories are being met and whether the fireworks factories which blew up over the summer had been subjected to such checks.