Prime Minister Robert Abela is afraid of mentioning his predecessor Joseph Muscat by name, even as he tries to shift the blame for the Steward hospitals concession onto his administration, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech said on Sunday morning.

Grech was speaking in a radio interview on party media ahead of a national protest which the PN has called for later on Sunday afternoon.

Speaking about the court’s sentence declaring the controversial hospitals concession null and void, Grech noted that Robert Abela has only said two things on it: the first that he is analysing the sentence – “and it looks like he still is as we haven’t been told what the way forward is” – and the second is defending himself as much as he can.

“We have Joseph Muscat shifting the blame onto others – including onto Robert Abela as he was Cabinet’s lawyer at the time, and we have Robert Abela shifting the blame onto his predecessors,” Grech said.

However, he added, Abela is “afraid to mention Joseph Muscat by name” despite wanting to shift responsibility for the deal onto his predecessor.

Commenting on another recent court victory for the PN, where a court found that the state broadcaster PBS had been biased against it, Grech said that this is a “clear declaration that PBS and the BA are there to service Robert Abela” and exist to share the government’s propaganda rather than the truth.

He said that the party’s court victory is another win for Malta as the people have a right to know the full truth, and not what the government wants them to know.

On the death of JeanPaul Sofia, Grech again questioned why Abela is refusing to appoint a public inquiry into the tragedy.

Sofia was killed in a construction collapse at a seemingly shoddily built industrial factory in the Kordin industrial estate last December.  Nobody has been charged in connection with the case yet.

“What is worrying you from doing this public inquiry?  Who do you want to protect?  Why don’t you want to learn what we can do better as a country so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes?,” Grech questioned.

He quoted Sofia’s family who said that the Prime Minister told them that his hands are tied.

“By who? Are you protecting someone?  Is there someone who has tied your hands, because you have what to hide, because you are afraid, because you know what shortcomings your government did?,” Grech said.

He called on the people to join the party’s protest in Valletta if they want a Prime Minister whose hands are not tied and who is willing to defend them.

Grech said that people are starting to realise that corruption is affecting them, because it is now affecting them in their health and in their safety. 

He said that he will be exposing “another scandal” during Sunday’s protest, adding that it is clear that the government has learnt and done nothing after the murder of Bernice Cassar.

He criticised Abela for trying to hide the report penned by a judge by publishing it the night before the judgement on the Steward concession was to be published, so that it would be hidden away in the news.

“Robert Abela has no dignity,” Grech concluded.