The public health sector in Malta is “sick with corruption” that has cost taxpayers €240 million in six years, Opposition leader Adrian Delia said on Sunday.

Referring to the government's agreement with Vitals and later with Steward Health Care for the running of three hospitals, Dr Delia said contractual obligations were not being met and Prime Minister Robert Abela should be decisive and reject offers to extend the deal's deadlines.

Delia, who was speaking at a political activity in Qala, said that the Gozitans had been cheated because the promised new state-of-the-art hospital had not been delivered despite the contract with Vitals and Steward. Taxpayers were meanwhile continuing to pay for promises that failed to materialize.

He condemned former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for reportedly lobbying the prime minister and Health Minister Chris Fearne to renegotiate Steward's lucrative contract. 

“Robert Abela is in a situation where he knows they have robbed us for six years and that they will continue to rob us for the next 30 years. In the past, he had the luxury of saying it was not in his power to decide. Now the power rests with him and it is his responsibility. Once he knows that so many obligations have not been met, he should stop this deal immediately and put the money we have been wasting on it to good use,” he said.

Delia said that it was the government’s responsibility to make sure that every cent of public funds that had been spent fruitlessly on this deal be paid back. Any public official who allowed the deal to continue unchecked must shoulder responsibility.

On the police overtime scandal, Delia said that discipline in the police corps had collapsed to the point where at a time when the country should be discussing the best mechanisms to elect a police commissioner, it was largely focused on a scandal that was indicative of the culture of corruption that had been allowed to fester.

Farmers paying for government's waste management failure

The opposition leader also addressed the take up of arable land in Magħtab for a proposed landfill expansion - an issue which sparked a protest by farmers on Saturday.

He said the government had failed entirely at waste management and now farmers were being asked to pay for its failure.