Updated Monday 9am
Opposition Leader Bernard Grech and PN MP Adrian Delia plan to go to court to reclaim the “stolen millions” from the hospitals’ deal because the government has so far failed to do so, they announced on Sunday.
They announced their plans during a fundraising telethon during which the PN collected €262,272. In a similar telethon, PL raised €445,364.
In February, a court annulled the privatisation deal for the running of St Luke’s, Karin Grech and the Gozo General hospitals, calling the contract fraudulent.
The concession for the running of the three hospitals was initially given to Vitals Global Healthcare but was in 2018 taken over by Steward Healthcare after this bought a majority stake in Vitals.
In October, the Court of Appeal confirmed the original judgement and upheld the cancellation of the contracts, on the basis that Steward had also failed to deliver on their promises and concluded that the entire deal appeared to be fraudulent.
The appeals court also said that it believed there was “collusion” between Steward and senior government officials and that the government had failed to protect the national interest in upholding the deal.
A day after the appeals court judgement was handed down, Grech and Delia walked into the police headquarters demanding to speak with Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà and urged him to investigate the deal following the damning judgement.
However, following this meeting, Grech said that Gafà had told them that he was not going to investigate the matter until the ongoing magisterial inquiry is concluded.
In Parliament, the PN filed a motion calling on the government to take Steward Healthcare to court and recoup €400 million, however, Prime Minister Robert Abela replied that the government was already seeking legal redress against Steward through the International Chamber of Commerce.
Last month, Grech and Delia filed a judicial protest against the Police Commissioner, the State Advocate and the Attorney General asking them to take action against the fraudulent deal or they would resort to further legal action to force them to do so.
In their reply to the protest, the three state authorities said that they were not empowered to take the action the PN was asking of them.
The PN has hit back at this response and said that the state institutions’ inaction is proof of their failure to uphold the duties of their respective offices.
On Sunday, Grech said that the PN has done everything in its power to push the prime minister, the police commissioner, the attorney general and the state advocate to act on this issue, but it has so far fallen on deaf ears and legal action remains the only remedy.
“As the PN remains the only body that is serving the people’s best interests, next week, Adrian and I are going back to court to open a case and make sure the €400 million that were stolen are returned to the people,” he said.
Delia added that in a normal country, all the public officials involved in this scandal would have resigned, but this has not happened in Malta.
“We will continue to fight this until all those who wronged the country face the consequences of their actions. We cannot allow things to continue as if nothing has happened,” he said.