The government might think now that US healthcare giant Steward has bought a majority stake in Vitals Global Healthcare, effectively taking control of the group and kicking out the anonymous former shareholders, this is now a closed case and the press will stop asking questions.

This will not be the case. There are many questions that need to be answered.

For a start, the country was misled on the type of deal that would be struck.

Up until Monday evening many were under the impression that VGH was selling its concession, lock, stock and barrel, to Steward. We believed that VGH would disappear, and Steward would walk into the picture.

We were surprised on Monday evening when Minister Konrad Mizzi told Parliament that VGH will remain the concessionaire, in spite of the share transfer.

Yesterday morning we got to know that VGH still exists and will remain in existence, at least for now. What has changed is its internal composition.

Effectively, the company now has new shareholders, except for the investor who threatened to stop the whole transfer when he launched court action some weeks ago. That court action is thought to be the primary reason why Steward bought into VGH, rather than replaced it completely.

This newspaper understands that VGH will be renamed in the near future. This is the obvious thing to do, for no right minded investor or operator would want to be associated with the VGH name and the lack of transparency and accountability that the infamous deal has come to signify.

On the positive side the hospitals have now been transferred from under an investor with no experience whatsoever in the medical sector to a company that runs over 30 hospitals in ten US states.

The anonymous investors, it seems, are out of the picture. But we still do not know what the share transfer was worth, and how many millions these anonymous individuals made by selling off something that belonged to all of us in the first place.

We are not against the privatization of state hospitals as long as there is a guarantee that the level of healthcare remains of high quality and free for Maltese citizens. What we are against is the selling of state hospitals and public services to unknown individuals, in deals that are anything but transparent and stink of corruption.

Before yesterday we were demanding to know who the people behind VGH – behind a large chunk of our healthcare system – were. Now, we are demanding to know what these investors made off our backs.

We also demand to know how the €50million+ that the government has given VGH – money that belongs to us, the people – was spent, and who pocketed what.

We demand full disclosure on anything that has anything to do with taxpayer money, state assets and public services. Nothing short of full disclosure should be accepted.

Another question is whether Konrad Mizzi, who is ultimately responsible for this mess, will shoulder the political responsibility.