Opposition Leader Adrian Delia is not satisfied that the prefabricated hospital tender was not as transparent as it should be.

The Foundation for Medical Services had launched a call for the supply and construction of a prefabricated hospital for COVID-19 patients. This, however, was stalled after PN MP Jason Azzopardi claimed that a company had already been enquiring about the hospital before the call was issued. Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne had stopped the process and ordered an investigation. Fearne later said, however, that the company mentioned by the MP had not even submitted a bid for the tender, and the investigation eventually found no wrongdoing.

Delia was being interviewed by The Malta Independent's Deputy Editor Kevin Schembri Orland on this week's edition of Indepth. Delia was told that the PN has been criticised for creating obstacles to the government recently, and this newsroom brought up the prefabricated hospital incident as an example. PN Leader Delia was asked whether the PN was shooting from the hip in this instance.

"If there ever was a time where we offered collaboration and said that we would support the health authorities, where we said that this is not the time for partisan politics, where we were being propositive and not being critical, it is now. We have had press conferences every day for the past 2-3 weeks on all sectors, including mental health, NGOs, business, the selfemployed, the environment, and came up with proposals for every single sector. That is a constructive Opposition."

"If we are only talking about that one instance (regarding the prefabricated hospital), as I have not heard any other instance where this argument was made - that we are creating hurdles - of course we are not."

Delia said that the Opposition is obliged, even at this point in time, not to forget that there are rule of law structures and good governance which still have to apply.

"So if we have known that this situation was coming for the past three months, how come you issue a tender which has to be decided in three days?" He said that the government spent over €250 million in 800 beds in Malta and Gozo, giving the money to Vitals Global Healthcare and Steward Health Care, "and they never gave us one single bed in return. All of a sudden we are going to issue another tender in three days, to construct a hospital of 90 beds. We shouldn't ask questions? Is that creating a hurdle?"

He said that he is not fully satisfied that the procurement regulations in this case have been fulfilled. "It is our obligation to ask questions where we see and where we think things are not being done in the right manner. Even if you look at the documentation that was presented with this tender, which is a very sophisticated tender, It was basically just a couple of pages where usually one has technical specifications as it is a very sensitive field." "There was unpreparedness, to say the least. There was a total run to something which was not explained, is not transparent, and public procurement regulations specifically ask for transparency. So no I don't think that we created hurdles, but we did our job to ask and ascertain that, even at this point in time, the Maltese are getting a good service and a good return for the taxes they are paying, particularly in the health service."

Delia was interviewed on Thursday. The full interview will be published on Sunday.