PN MP Adrian Delia said on Wednesday that if the government doesn’t renounce the Steward Healthcare hospitals deal till the budget vote in parliament, any MP who votes in favour of the budget will be breaking the law, by voting in favour of a “corrupt deal” that was deemed corrupt by the contractor itself.
Referring to an article by The Shift, Delia said Steward claimed in court filings that the concession it took over in 2017 from Vitals Global Healthcare (VGH) may be the result of corrupt practice.
VGH had received a €2 billion concession to run the Gozo, Karin Grech and St Luke's hospitals in 2015, despite having no experience in healthcare.
Delia stated that any MP voting for the budget will in turn be allowing the government to spend taxpayer’s money corruptly.
Delia added that it was “alarming” that not only had the government not terminated the hospital deal altogether, due to no progress being done on these hospitals, but it had granted it a €23 million yearly increase.
Speaking in parliament on Monday, Delia said that the PN would give the government all the support it needs to terminate the hospitals concession agreement.
During the press conference today, Delia alluded to Health Minister Chris Fearne’s PN address following the budget, wherein he noted that in condemning the €23 million increase towards the Steward Hospitals deal, the PN is saying that it does not want to invest more money into the country’s health care sector.
Delia stated that this increased monetary allocation to Steward was “deceptively” described by Fearne as an investment into the country’s health sector and that Fearne had “glossed over the fact that under the highly secretive agreement the funds go straight to Steward coffers regardless of whether they spend it on the hospitals or not”.
Delia added that this deal was a continued display of “theft” by government from tax payer’s money as with the Electrogas deal.
Furthermore, Delia asked which bank was going to accept responsibility for this corrupt deal and when the regulators were going to step in.
Speaking at the same press conference on Wednesday, PN MP Stephen Spiteri said that amongst all their other proposals to increase the quality of health care across the country, it pledges to give the pink paper to all low income pensioners.