OHSA's legal remit (1)

Mr Herman Scifo had already sent the letter "Weekend abuse" (The Sunday Times, April 23) to another Sunday newspaper some weeks ago and I had replied to show my strong disagreement with it.

Indeed, the spirit in which the letter was written, as well as the conclusions reached, are far from being flawless and regrettably might end up being a disservice to our community.

It would have been better for the reader to verify the facts prior to rushing to write. The fact is that the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) does not have any right of action where heavy vehicles exceed the permitted load and break traffic rules. Thus, no action on the matter could be taken by the OHSA irrespective of whether this incident took place during weekdays or at the weekend.

This is not due to the OHSA attempting to shift responsibility but rather because it has no legal remit to act on such cases. There are other entities which are responsible for this.

I can empathise with the reader feeling frustrated that the entities s/he contacted could not be of assistance. Nevertheless, what started as a citizen's good will and action regrettably ended up being an irresponsible gesture on his/her part to entice persons and entities to adopt bad practices and break the law. Under no circumstances is this to be acceptable in our society.