Prime Minister Robert Abela has taken umbrage at a request from an Opposition MP to divulge details of legal advice he had given his predecessor Joseph Muscat while he was his legal adviser.

Nationalist MP David Thake asked the prime minister in parliament to list the matters he had given advice about and whether his advice had been accepted.  

But Abela flatly refused to give any details on the grounds he was bound by confidentiality.   

Abela was appointed legal adviser to Muscat after the June 2017 general election and held the position until he became prime minister.  

He said that Thake’s parliamentary question was akin to inviting the head of government to break the law.

“Such a parliamentary question should never have been put in the first place as by law the advice given cannot be divulged,” the prime minister said.

However, he pointed out that from day one of his appointment as Muscat’s legal adviser he had renounced payment.

Last Monday, Opposition leader Adrian Delia claimed that in August last year Abela had signed on behalf of the Office of the Prime Minister, a controversial clause under which government would incur a €100 million fine if it terminated the hospitals concession agreement.

The existence of this clause only came to light last month but so far the prime minister has not reacted. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, Abela had said the controversial agreement signed in 2016 with Vitals Global Health Care, who transferred it to Steward in 2018, was being reviewed.

Meanwhile, the government’s plan to build a prefabricated hospital to increase the stock of beds due to the pandemic has put the agreement back under the spotlight.

This is due to the fact that under the 30-year dea,l Vitals, and Steward were contractually bound to provide around 900 additional beds at the three State hospital they manage – St Luke’s, Gozo and Karin Grech.

The Opposition will be also tabling a parliamentary motion to rescind the agreement which it said has already cost taxpayers €250 million.