The shrouds that have surrounded the toxic contract that awarded the management of three public hospitals to Vitals, a shell company in the British Virgin Islands, are slowly being torn apart. The thick veils of secrecy need to be shredded much faster to stop the haemorrhage of taxpayers’ money in this shocking scandal.
The valuation report awarding the contract to Vitals was concluded in June 2015. It now transpires that one of the members of the adjudicating committee was Manuel Castagna, a Nexia BT partner assigned to audit Keith Schembri’s local businesses.
Those who have followed the political saga of the last few months do not need much updating on the roles that Nexia BT, Keith Schembri and former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in the web of intrigue that has contaminated Maltese politics with a network of corruption and abuse of power.
Appointing a Nexia BT partner on the adjudication board is much more than an error of judgement.
It raises suspicion of a network of perverse actors who were behind the political decadence in the last few years of Joseph Muscat’s government.
This toxic network seems to have had a role to play in every significant public contract.
Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat used his power of incumbency to block the scrutiny of the backdrop to the award of the hospitals’ management contract to a company with little or no experience in running hospitals and even less experience in financial management.
The Information and Data Protection Appeals Board denied Times of Malta’s request for details on the adjudication board of the hospitals’ tender.
A few details of this notorious contract are now well known.
The concession is worth €1 billion spread over 30 years. The promises made by Vitals on the award of the contract have not materialised including a commitment to invest €200 million in three local hospitals.
Vitals pulled out of the contract after just two years and sold out their rights to Steward Health Care, an American healthcare provider, for an undisclosed sum.
An article by Kevin Cassar, a consultant vascular surgeon at Mater Dei Hospital, gives ample evidence of the lack of experience of Vitals in managing hospitals successfully. It also confirms the opposition of the medical profession and even some senior Cabinet ministers to the deal and shows how the contractors’ promises never materialised. Mr Cassar understandably describes the hospitals’ contract as “a disaster for the Maltese taxpayers and an even bigger disaster for Maltese patients”’. The National Audit Office has unfortunately still not completed its investigations into the award of this contract.
This delay is not helping to clear the air soon enough and limit the damage caused to Maltese taxpayers. Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi who were the protagonists in this saga are no longer significant figures in the local political scene.
The Prime Minister, Robert Abela, needs to ensure that the team he has appointed to update him on the hospitals’ contract deliver their report as soon as possible.
He certainly has the support of the majority of people to ensure that contracts that may be the cause of a haemorrhage of taxpayers’ money should be rescinded. Those that are proven to have acted abusively in the award of such contracts must be held accountable for their actions.