Explosives Committee not consulted on Cabinet decision

The Explosives Committee was not consulted by the Cabinet before it intervened in 2001 to effectively legalise the fireworks factory that recently blew up in Gharghur, The Times has learnt.

The Times reported last week that the Cabinet had directly intervened in 2001 to bypass regulations that would have forced the closure of the St Helen's - which exploded some three weeks ago killing five people - and Briffa fireworks factories in Gharghur, despite the fact that both are situated 130 metres short of the legally-recommended safe distance from public roads and inhabited areas.

Sources close to the pyrotechnics industry told The Times the Explosives Committee, a consultative body of professionals from the army, the police and the Civil Protection Department, entrusted with overseeing the regulation of fireworks, had not been consulted in this case.

Questions sent to the Home Affairs Ministry and to the head of the committee, Brigadier Carmel Vassallo, have remained unanswered.

The same sources explained that the St Helen and Briffa factories are likely to be among other factories identified by a confidential 2004 report, which the government has persistently refused to release, as "unsafe" factories due to their proximity to nearby roads and residences.

In fact, the factories, which stand less than 50 metres from the road that connects Naxxar to Ta' l-Ibrag, would breach the law regulating fireworks factories, which provides for a 183-metre safety buffer from any inhabited place or street that is "used regularly".

After an explosion at the Briffa factory in 2000, which caused partial explosions at St Helen's, the Cabinet regularised the position of the factories through a memo that rendered the road next to the factories a "private road", reserved exclusively for "farmers, residents and fireworks factory employees".

This, according to an Ombudsman report which dealt with the matter, means that the street in question is "used as irregularly as possible", making the factories legal.

Had the situation remained as it was, the Ombudsman had noted, "the authorities responsible for licensing the firework factories... would risk falling foul of the Explosives Ordinance..."

In practice, the redefinition of the road did not make the factories any less hazardous. A woman who was driving past the St Helen factory when it exploded on June 27 had a close shave when the roof of her car was ripped off by debris.

Properties in the area, particularly a villa which sits back-to-back with the devastated St Helen factory, sustained significant damages which the owner claims run into tens of thousands of liri. In fact, the owners of the affected properties and nearby residents on Monday filed a judicial protest holding the government and the Police Commissioner responsible for damages.

Not only have the authorities not taken any steps to safeguard the life and property of the residents, the residents complained in the protest, making direct reference to the Cabinet's intervention, but, on the contrary, they have done everything in their power to protect the fireworks factories to the detriment of the residents.

The Justice and Home Affairs Ministry has avoided commenting on the information that the Explosives Committee was not consulted before the Cabinet took its decision to regularise the fireworks factory. Because the residents have filed a judicial protest, the ministry said, the government does not feel it is appropriate to make statements at this stage.

The ministry also failed to answer questions in this connection before the protest was filed last Monday.

The confidential 2004 report proposes badly needed measures to make fireworks production safer but to date no action is known to have been taken about it.

Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg appointed a pyrotechnics commission last March to draw up another report that should be presented to the government by October.