Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health Chris Fearne has said that payments to Vitals Global Healthcare were transparent, and that the National Audit Office is investigating the deal.

Vitals Global Healthcare had signed a deal with government to run two hospitals in Malta, and the Gozo General Hospital. A few years after the deal, it pulled out of the concession and sold it to Stewards Healthcare. Recently, questions were raised as to what Vitals Global Healthcare had done with the millions government paid to the company.

The company was also meant to invest around €200 million into St Luke's Hospital, Karin Grech Hospital and the Gozo General Hospital.

Asked by The Times of Malta where the money which government paid went, Fearne said that the way government paid was transparent, and that the principle was that government was paying for the services which was being provided at the hospitals as per the agreement. He said that the National Audit Office is looking into the deal,  and that they are paying the same amount they were prior to VGH coming into the picture.

He said that Stewards Healthcare already invested €20 million, but would not answer what VGH did with the funds.