The latest report by the auditor general into the hospitals privatisation deal showed that the fraud suffered by the people was bigger than originally thought and that the €400 million given to Vitals/Steward Healthcare did not include the workers’ salaries, Opposition leader Bernard Grech said on Monday.

He was speaking at a press conference with Nationalist MP Adrian Delia, who said the report also confirmed that the transfer of the concession from Vitals to Steward was abusive and illegal and should never have happened.

Grech said the report was further confirmation that the government was at one with those who had defrauded the people.

The prime minister, he said, had been "lying to the House and to the people" when he claimed that the €400 million which the Opposition wanted to be returned by Steward, included workers’ salaries.

Abela, he said, was trying to blame everyone except himself for what had happened, and yet he was clearly part of it.

It was worth noting that under Joseph Muscat’s government, Vitals was handed €128 million by the government, whereas under Robert Abela, Steward received €280 million, which, it now resulted, did not include the salaries, he said. 

Abela had repeatedly sided with Vitals and Steward instead of the people and, as the auditor’s report showed, the government failed to intervene when it could have stopped the transfer from Vitals to Steward. It could also have demanded payment for the transfer (known as lawdemju) , but it didn’t, he said. 

The NAO report concluded that government spent €456 million on Gozo General, Karin Grech and St Luke's Hospitals from June 2016 to the end of 2021. 

It also noted that the deal's value for money aspect was "fundamentally undermined" by a Labour Supply Agreement through which the government provided Vitals and later Steward Health Care with 1,500 workers. While the government received a €32 million refund for that, the workers' value was far greater. 

Grech criticised Abela for wanting the 450-page report to be debated in parliament immediately, saying this was impossible for the Opposition because it did not have enough time to study it.  

'Surreal' comments by the prime minister: Delia

Adrian Delia, who had instituted the case which led to a court annulling the hospitals concession, recalled that the prime minister had said he was writing to the auditor asking him to establish how much had been handed to Vitals/Steward and where the money had gone.

Now he had his reply, 450 pages of it, and it was surreal how the prime minister had even claimed in parliament that this report proved him right.     

This was the third report by the auditor into the hospitals concession. In the first, in July 2020,  the Audit Office had criticised the process leading to the concession being granted to Vitals. The second, which was equally critical, was on the supposed implementation of the deal.

Now the auditor had looked into the transfer of the concession from Vitals to Steward. While the prime minister claimed to have been proved right, the report spoke of ‘nebulous negotiations’  and ‘going into the abyss,’ such was the confusion that had resulted.

It also spoke of ‘a rude awakening’, ‘negotiating the unnegotiable,’ and ‘hopeless endings’.

Delia said that while the report still had to be studied in detail, six main points emerged.

1. Vitals and Steward were paid more than €400 million and the prime minister had been trying to deceive the people when he said that the original sum of €400 million included the workers’ salaries.
2. €188 million were paid over and above the €400 million.  
3. The government could not and should not have accepted the transfer of the deal from Vitals to Steward.  The report gave reasons why this transfer was abusive and illegal.   
4. When the concession transfer went ahead, the government could have demanded payment (Lawdemju) but it did not budge and instead allowed the people to be robbed.  
5. The cabinet was asked to approve the deal when approval had already been issued by Konrad Mizzi and Malta Industrial Parks. The Cabinet knew that matters were not correct, but still went ahead with its approval.
6. Abela had 'lied' when he claimed he always sought to protect the national interest. More were paid under his government to Steward than under the Muscat government to Vitals/Steward, and it had now been revealed that that did not include the salaries.

Delia observed that the prime minister had claimed that the Opposition was in a panic over this latest report. Decency, he said, demanded the truth, and the truth was that after three critical reports by the Auditor-General and a court sentence, the prime minister and his government needed to shoulder responsibility.  

The press conference was also addressed by PN deputy leader Alex Perici Calascione, who criticised the police commissioner for failing to investigate the hospitals concession.