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The Chairperson of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, Roberta Messina, has told MaltaToday that her authority had inspected the Mediterranean Conference Centre (MCC) to ascertain the place’s safety during her “brief term of office”.
Messina, who happens to be the wife of Peter Fenech – the chairman of the conference centre which was at the centre of much controversy over a New Year’s eve party which ended in tragedy with the death of 19-year-old Jeanette Mifsud – declined to say whether her authority inspected the site before or after the tragedy but limited herself to saying that MCC “has been subject to inspection during my brief term of office”.
She said there was “no pending complaint by anybody regarding health and safety issues at MCC” and insisted that the fact that her husband was chairman there had “no bearing at all on my responsibilities”.
However, she said the law precluded her from involving herself in the authority’s “executive, administrative or operational matters.”
She added that “OHSA has no jurisdiction to investigate the unfortunate tragedy that happened on New Year’s Eve outside MCC premises.”
Both Messina and her husband were appointed by Minister Louis Galea.
However, she said: “I act with full integrity and in a professional and competent manner to the best of my abilities.”
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