An asbestos removal contract has been put on hold pending an investigation into the winning bidder which was allegedly found not to have insurance covering accidental public exposure, in breach of the tender specifications.
A spokesman for the Economy Ministry said the contract which concerns the removal of asbestos from a section of the Marsa open centre for immigrants, was “at a standstill”.
The investigation was launched after an exercise by The Sunday Times of Malta revealed that only two companies of the five that advertise asbestos removal services claim to have insurance cover. The owner of one said his company does not actually do the cleaning itself but leaves it to an unnamed “foreign company”. It is this company that has the insurance cover, not his.
The material was used widely for insulation and fireproofing until the late 1970s, before it was established that asbestos can release tiny fibres into the air that cause cancer when inhaled.
As a result, Malta has scores of old factories, particularly abandoned properties belonging to the Malta Industrial Parks, which are littered with the material. Nonetheless, Malta does not have legislation regulating asbestos removal companies specifically. Moreover, they do not need to have an insurance cover, unlike countries like the UK, where it is a requirement for any company undertaking this sort of work. The government had been making the need for insurance cover a requirement in public tenders for asbestos removal. However, the requirement has not been consistent over the years.
Besides, the tender under investigation, this newspaper discovered that the requirement was mysteriously dropped on a recent tender and when questions were sent to the government, the Contracts Department issued an addendum to the tender, pointing out that the requirement had been mistakenly left out.
Both the finance and economy ministries were asked whether this “mistake” was being looked into and for the status of the tender already under investigation.
However, no response was forthcoming.
Many readers reacted with concern to last month’s report in The Sunday Times of Malta regarding the lack of regulation for asbestos handling companies. Among them was a doctor, Charles Gauci from Sannat, who recounted the story of a fellow doctor in his 60s from the UK and who died recently of asbestosis.
He was exposed to the material for a relatively short time when he worked on a building site to pay his way while studying at university. Diseases caused by asbestos usually take between 10 to 40 years to develop.
The biggest concentration of asbestosis in Malta remains that related to the former drydocks. In 2012, the heirs workers filed individual and class action lawsuits in the US, seeking their right to compensation in damages for occupational exposures to asbestos products while working – among other places – on US warships.
mmicallef@timesofmalta.com