PM's talks with Skanska 'too little, too late' - Sant

The Prime Minister's talks with contractor Skanska on the building of the new hospital were "too little, too late" and the people were still worse off by several million liri, Opposition leader Alfred Sant said in parliament yesterday.

He was speaking during a debate on a no-confidence motion moved by the opposition on the basis of the talks concluded earlier this month.

Reading the motion at the opening of the debate, Dr Sant said the opposition agreed that the people deserved the best possible medical services, including a modern general hospital.

But the government, through a design and build agreement reached with Skanska (in the year 2000), had allowed costs to shoot up uncontrollably.

The projected cost of the building of the hospital has gone up from Lm83 million to Lm139 million and the completion date had been extended to mid-2007 from 2003 and 2005.

Although the February 2000 agreement with Skanska had provided for penalties if contractual obligations were not met the company was let off.

The real global expenditure on the hospital by the end of this year would reach Lm151 million and it was expected to go up to at least Lm216 million if the hospital opened in 2007.

Dr Sant said a statement in parliament last week by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi demonstrated the government's moral and political failure in the building of the hospital.

The House had been misled for years, when it was told that the project was proceeding as planned and on time even as funds were squandered.

One of the main issues, Dr Sant insisted, was of accountability. Who was responsible for what? Who had been responsible over the years? Why had no one shouldered responsibility for the way matters developed?

It was not just the former Prime Minister who was to blame. He had his responsibilities but there were others, such as Louis Galea, Louis Deguara and Lawrence Gonzi.

The health sector, Dr Sant said, was of great importance for the country and it had to be sustained. But waste and squandering was unacceptable and should not be ignored.

While millions had been squandered, the health service had suffered with even shortages of gauzes, sterilised gloves being reported. CT scan equipment had been out of order for a relatively long period. At the Outpatients Department in St Luke's two lifts were out of order, some health centres and some halls at St Vincent de Paul lacked air conditioning and radiology equipment at Boffa Hospital had to be bought by a private organisation because the government had no money for it.

Dr Sant said the Labour government in 1996 had been unable to back out of deals already reached with Skanska and it was too late to reverse the project, but the then government heeded expert advice and ensured this would be a comprehensive hospital. It also imposed controls on the way Skanska operated.

But the new PN government elected in 1998 left everything to Skanska. Although the Foundation for Medical Services was supposedly there to monitor everything, that was not the case at all.

The Prime Minister's negotiations this summer, Dr Sant said, were too little too late. Their outcome left the people millions of liri short at a time when health services were facing financial problems.

When he spoke at the end of the debate, Dr Sant said that while the opposition had been accused of delaying the hospital project, it had nothing to do with the fact that the appeal into the hospital equipment tender lasted seven or eight months.

The opposition, he said, had moved its motion because it cared about how the people's money was spent.

The country could no longer have situations where millions of liri were spent without anyone shouldering responsibility. In a parliamentary democracy it was the prime minister and his cabinet who were responsible.

Dr Sant criticised the way how cousins of the prime minister were in the government's negotiating team with Skanska. He was not questioning their professional competence, but there should be minimum standards of public ethics. One of these people was a director and vice-chairman of the Foundation for Medical Services, which was supposed to have prevented the mess which the project was now in.

The government, up to some time ago, had sought to deceive the people on how the project was progressing, claiming everything was according to plan. Even now, the people were still being deceived.

It was lauding its deal with Skanska, yet the deal meant the government was losing Lm60 million. The government had waived Lm5 million in fines which could have been imposed on Skanska for the delays to date. It claimed the new deal included penalties should the project be delayed again, but in actual fact the contractor was not assuming any new risks. Clearly, it was Skanska which had made the best deal.

Calculations showed that the people would have to pay some Lm100 million more on the hospital, an average of Lm25 million per year. Yet the government had told the EU in the convergence programme that most of the outlay on the hospital would be paid by 2006.

This showed that the government did not know where it stood and the people were being shortchanged.

Although certain intentions could have been genuine there were underhand dealings which rendered the situation out of control, Dr Sant said.