Last week, the Prime Minister announced his intention to reopen St Luke’s as a hospital to be used for gerontology. I am sure that this is a wise decision for this building. It was a big mistake on the part of the previous administration to have allowed other activities not related to health to operate at St Luke’s. It was also a bigger mistake to leave the place to deteriorate to its present state. We have an ageing population. The fact that this Government is going to use St Luke’s for the elderly makes sense. It will be relieving the pressure off Mater Dei, where at present a number of beds are being occupied by social cases.
However, I cannot support the government’s decision to develop it in tandem with private industry. I am totally against public institutions being taken over by private enterprises. I am in favour of the nineteenth-century concept that public and private enterprise should be kept separate and in competition with one another, while the government should guarantee an equal playing field for its entities and the private sector, otherwise the risk of collusion is paramount.
I can never accept that a government ends up paying from our taxes for the use of property and services that are originally of the State. As announced, government is going to endup financing this private initiative by committing itself to buy a number of beds at this new hospital.
Unfortunately, this modus operandi was the trend in the past. The previous administration allocated government properties to private companies, as in the case when it created Malita,a company to manage Government property at the entrance to Valletta. With great irony, the government ended up paying fines to this same company for having failed to complete the Parliament project on time, for property, which it owns. A similar situation has developed with the Premier saga where again government ended up paying money for property it owned.
Incidentally, the development of St. Luke Hospital should take into consideration the historical urban structure of this complex. The parts that are in usenow are the later additions, built in the late seventies and eighties. I am here referring to Karen Grech. From an aesthetical point of view, these are the ugliest parts, even if, the most functional, that haveruined the whole set up of the original plans. I would suggest that if the government wants to really develop this place, it should work towards restoringthe original space by removing any later additions that havedestroyed the geometric plan of St. Luke’s Hospital.
Most worrying though is the fact that this development in the health sector is now immersed in political controversy. As rightly noted by the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Simon Busuttil, from the way government has phrased its health projects, it appears that it has already somebody in mind to whom to award the contract of 200million euro.
In itself, there is nothing wrong with the fact that a government allocates big projects by direct contract. In fact, government has three legal options as to how to dispose of its properties. The first option is by direct allocation. This needs the approval of Parliament,through a parliamentary resolution. This procedure allows the government toenter in direct discussion with the person, persons or company interested in the project. This has happened in the past, and the specific legal provisions, which allow our government to do so, exonerate the government from issuing even an expression of interest or tender.
The Smart City project was given to TECOM Investments by direct allocation after a parliamentary resolution and the Tigne Project was also developed by the Mizzi Group on the same legal provision. In other words, no expression of interest or tender was issued for the development of these two infrastructural projects. By the by, the news that a private hospital is going to be developed at Smart City is to be commended.
The second option is by expression of interest. This would mean that the chosen candidate is bound to implement the project according to specific rules and criteria set down beforehandby the government. These two procedures allow the government to give consideration to social needssuch as job creations over profits.
The third option is by tender. Here the selected bidder is the one making the highest bid above the government’s established estimate. In other words, the government would bind itself to give the project or building to the one offering the highest bid, irrespective or not, whether the allocated project is the one that would be creating the highest number of jobs or not.
The problem here is that the media touted that the government is going for a tender but at the same time, the reportinggave the impression that the bidder is already there andthat government knows which company is going to win the tender. Unfortunately, the government can no longer hide behind claims of immaturity or inexperience. Citizens expect that after two years at the helm,our ministers should know the laws and the procedures of our civil service. Thisongoing attitude is ruining the good work that is being done in the health sector.