Nationalist Party Leader Bernard Grech has called on the people to protest outside parliament next Thursday as MPs debate an Opposition motion calling on the government to reclaim some €400 million in taxpayer money that was spent on the “corrupt and fraudulent” hospitals deal.
Speaking during a political activity on Sunday, Grech said that a week since he had asked Prime Minister Robert Abela to sue Vitals and Steward to reclaim the people's money, there has been no reaction or response from the government.
“This is a case that only the prime minister can institute because only he has the authority to represent the government and the country in a case like this,” he said.
Speaking at about the same time on Sunday, the prime minister told a One Radio interviewer that he would insist that Steward Healthcare reimburse the funds handed to it for investment, which never materialised. Abela said he was guided by the national interest and he would be realistic, not populist as the opposition was.
Grech said the opposition would insist that the motion it had presented in parliament should be voted upon without amendment on Thursday, and it would back the government on action to recover the funds that had gone into the hospitals contract.
“But Robert Abela has once again chosen to favour the powerful and the strong, he has chosen the foreigner and denied the Maltese and Gozitan people.”
‘Labour attacking like an animal backed into a corner’
Grech said the government and Robert Abela, instead of sorting out the mess, were blaming everyone but themselves for the current predicament.
“They remind me of an animal backed into a corner and lashing out” he said.
But the PN would not be giving in to intimidation or propaganda and would keep on speaking up for what was right, including continuing to insist on a public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia.
“We will not let you steal the dignity of this family,” he said.
It was not enough for problems to be highlighted in reports without any investment to solve them, Grech added.
“There is no investment in matters like the judiciary and law enforcement because they used all our money in their roadmap of corruption,” he said.
“It is a truth that no one can deny, ten years of a Labour government has resulted in a shortage of nurses, poor pay for healthcare workers, a shortage of medicines, long waiting lists for operations and a disastrous state of affairs in the hospital's Casualty Department," he said.