Opposition Leader Adrian Delia said on Saturday he expects full transparency on a probe into a tender for a prefabricated hospital, which was stalled following concerns raised by a PN MP.
Earlier this week, the Foundation for Medical Services issued a call for a temporary hospital that can take up to 90 Covid-19 patients.
The process was stopped and an adjudication process was set up to investigate claims by Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi, who said a company knew about the call before it was announced.
Addressing a press conference, Delia said the government had to resort to a prefabricated hospital because VGH and Steward Health Care had failed to do what they were paid to do – to invest and give the public state-of-the-art hospitals.
The country was not payng the price of such a “corrupt and immoral” deal, he said.
He said the Opposition expects full transparency on the investigation on the prefab hospital tender and wants to know the terms of reference and whether the result of the probe will be made public.
“The Deputy Prime Minister said the government is being transparent on the Covid-19 situation. We expect them to be transparent on this too and hope that they will be taking these claims of trading in influence seriously.”
Speaking on the restrictive measures that come into force today, Delia said this was a wise step that the Opposition had been calling for. He insisted, however, that when announcing such measures, the government needs to ensure that all those affected receive its full support. The government had three weeks to plan, he said.
Turning to the latest round of economic measures, the PN Leader said the government was leaving out some 100,000 workers and more jobs will be lost unless more is done.
PN MP Jason Azzopardi, said the country is paying the price of corruption. He accused PM Robert Abela of choosing in favour of the corrupt. “Abela prefers having Maltese patients treated inside a prefabricated hospital than at the hospitals which it sold to a private company, and which have a combined total of 800 beds,” he said.
The PM “prefers endangering the lives of Maltese patients instead of taking back control of the hospitals,” he continued.
He said the government this week passed a law allowing it to requisition private properties in times of emergency. Azzopardi challenged the PM to start by taking back the privatised hospitals.
Turning to the prefab hospital contract, he said that a company that is close to the PM and to the Labour Party – Tec Ltd – which had also set up Robert Abela’s campaign tents, had already been seeking quotations two weeks ago.
Chris Fearne said, during a press conference in Gozo, that the aforementioned company has categorically denied knowing about the project beforehand and has not even launched a bid on it.
PN MP Karol Aquilina said Vitals and Steward were bound to invest millions into the hospitals but the facilities have not been upgraded. Fearne has confirmed that St Luke’s, in its current state, cannot receive Covid-19 patients.