Portrayal of hospitals case as a victory is betrayal of the people - Graffitti
'Every official who tried to win political points by selling this unequivocal statement of failure as a 'victory' should hang their head in shame.'
Moviment Graffitti on Sunday slammed government attempts to spin the international arbitration tribunal’s decision on the hospitals concession as a victory.
"The government’s triumphalist propaganda is all the more pathetic when compared to the blunt statement of the International Court of Arbitration, which had no qualms stating that the concession ‘sadly turned out to be failure whose primary victims are the citizens of Malta," the NGO said.
"Every official who tried to win political points by selling this unequivocal statement of failure as a 'victory' should hang their head in shame."
"Every attempt to spin the result as anything other than a damning judgement of the Government’s behaviour in granting and overseeing the concession is nothing but a transparent betrayal of the public whose interests it is duty-bound to protect," Graffitti added.
It said the tribunal’s decision did not alter its long-standing position that the privatisation deal was a flawed and corrupt process with a profoundly negative impact on Malta and its people. It enriched the few at enormous public expense, while the country lost out on years of investment into its health infrastructure.
The tribunal's decision, it added, did however, provide fresh insights on the government’s absolute failure to protect the public interest, primarily by refusing to terminate the concession, or deduct payments, once it became clear that the concessionaire was unable to fulfil its commitments.
That refusal to act on the public’s behalf over the years culminated in the tribunal’s most consequential finding: that the Government, having never raised any complaint whatsoever throughout the lifetime of the concession, could not now claim that the services provided were lacking all along.
"The Government, having actively collaborated to mask Vitals’ and Steward’s flaws, could not credibly argue that those flaws were evident all along. The tribunal therefore dismissed the Government’s claim to recoup €488 million, finding “no compelling evidence” for the claim," the group said.
"It is clear that despite all the attempts to spin the arbitration tribunal’s decision as a victory for Malta, it is anything but."
Moviment Graffitti called for haste and courage in the ongoing prosecution of all those involved in turning Malta’s healthcare system 'into a private cash cow.'
It also called for all privatisation deals in which Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri, Chris Cardona, Joseph Muscat, and Projects Malta (now Malta Strategic Partnership Projects) had any role to be investigated to determine whether fraud or corruption played any part in the process.