Fireworks Inspection Unit to be set up soon

The long-promised Fireworks Inspection Unit, which will be tasked with carrying out random checks on fireworks factories, is expected to be up and running within weeks, The Sunday Times has learnt.

Late last month, a call for applications was made for people interested in being members of the unit. Ten candidates have been shortlisted.

The setting up of this unit formed part of a series of measures promised by Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici - who is responsible for the industry - after the latest tragedy in Naxxar, where illegally-stored fireworks exploded in the middle of a residential area killing two people and destroying three homes. The unit would set in motion a key recommendation made in a 2004 report to improve fireworks factory safety, but which was largely ignored during the previous legislature.

Along with the unit and a revision of the penalties for illegal manufacture of fireworks, a commission will be set up to revise the 1937 building specifications for factories, a spokesman for the ministry told The Sunday Times.

These 1937 specifications lay down minimum distances between factory rooms where explosives are stored and those where they are processed. But technical advances had led to much more powerful explosives which means the regulations are now outdated.

A 2004 report listed three factories which breached the 1937 safety regulations but no action was taken. Moreover, the previous Home Affairs Minister, Tonio Borg, consistently refused to publish the document.

Most of the fireworks factories are expected to fall foul of the new regulations to be proposed by the commission since the owners did not adapt their buildings to evolving explosives technology.

Nonetheless, the setting up of the unit is an important first step in enforcing the existing legislation, since so far the industry remains largely unregulated.

The brief of the unit is not only to inspect the factories but also to identify from where the fireworks may be launched.

Another request has been made for the release of the 2004 report, but no response has been forthcoming so far.