Health Minister Chris Fearne said he was kept in the dark on the deal reached by the government to transfer three public hospitals to Vitals.

At the time, he said in a post on Facebook, he was parliamentary secretary for health, but he was never involved in the negotiations.

Fearne was reacting to a report made public by the National Audit Office which found there had been "proof of collusion with government or its representatives" when the deal was reached.

Fearne said that the NAO report is “worrying”. During the time frame covered by the report he said he was parliamentary secretary, with Konrad Mizzi as Health Minister. “I declare that I was absolutely not involved at all in any negotiations referred to by the NAO that were held before the issuing of the RfP and neither was I informed about them.”

The NAO report confirms this clearly, Fearne said. “In fact I did not even know about the existence of the MOU”.

The auditor confirmed that the parliamentary secretariat and the Finance Ministry were kept in the dark on the RfP, Fearne said.