Updated | Former FMS chief refutes Mizzi allegations of ‘hidden’ Mater Dei docs

Mater Dei's Medical Assessment Unit

Documents pertaining to the Mater Dei construction saga were “isolated” from other documents in the safe of the former CEO of the Foundation for Medical Services, according to energy and health minister Konrad Mizzi said.

Speaking to journalists following a visit at the constructions site of the Medical Assessment Unit at Mater Dei, Mizzi said that both commercial and political responsibility had to be shouldered for findings of the weak cement located at the foundations of Mater Dei’s A&E department.

“We will wait for the independent inquiry before commenting any further but there was awareness of structural problems at the hospital, so much so that the helipad was moved, which is a known fact. Certain documents were then found in a safe, only after the departure of the then FMS CEO, Brian St John,” Mizzi said.

St John is today the CEO of Media.Link, the PN's media arm.

Mizzi gave a cryptic reply to a question about the political responsibility of the former PN administration.

“Simon Busuttil makes his choices and he chooses his CEOs as well,” Mizzi said.

In a reaction, St John rejected the minister's insinuations, saying they were "unfounded and malicious" and that he reserved the right to take legal action.

"My record at the Foundation for Medical Services speaks for itself and was always driven by the principles of ethics and good governance. It is deplorable that Konrad Mizzi attempts to tarnish my reputation simply because I am now the CEO of Medialink Communications. This, when just yesterday, the Arup report - commissioned by government - gave a clean bill of health to the Mater Dei Hospital Oncology Centre which was designed and built during my tenure as CEO of FMS."

St John added that the chronology of facts refuted Mizzi's suggestions. "I resigned my FMS post on the 30 May 2014. The inquiry started in September 2014, four months later, at which point my relationship with the FMS had ceased. So I could not have withheld any information from anyone. Incidentally I never held a key to any safe at the FMS."

The government has now written to Swedish contractors Skanska offering full disclosure of the report and requesting a meeting to discuss the findings.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat today also warned that Swedish construction firm Skanska not only had huge responsibility to shoulder, but also a reputation to defend.

Konrad Mizzi said he was deeply angered by the conclusions of a report that found structural damage Mater Dei. “I’m angry like everyone else out there who doesn’t expect these things to happen when €600 million were spent to build a hospital that didn’t even answer to the population’s growth,” he said.

Parliamentary secretary Chris Fearne said the government had worked tirelessly to address the problem of shortage of beds, commenting that “it has to be a Labour government to solve the problems created by previous administrations.”