The people deserve an explanation as to what happened to the millions of euro in taxpayer funds handed to Vitals, supposedly for the running of state hospitals, the PN said on Monday.

It was reacting to a story in The Sunday Times of Malta which reported that between 2016 and early 2018  €21 million handed to Vitals by the government were transferred out, sometimes on the same day.

Shadow ministers Adrian Delia and  Jerome Caruana Cilia in a statement observed that squandering of taxpayers' money contrasted with belt-tightening measures being demanded by the government owing to inflation. 

Instead of seeking to recover the millions handed to Vitals, Prime Minister Robert Abela was demanding that his ministries scale back their spending by €200 million, they said.  

The people had been robbed by Vitals and expected to be reimbursed, they added. 

They observed that Steward, which has taken over the management of the hospitals from Vitals, is now paid twice as much by the government and the health minister therefore needed to explain where the millions were going and whether an inquiry would be held into the disappearance of the funds.