Prime Minister Robert Abela’s letter to the Auditor General to investigate the Vitals deal is an attempt by the government to lose time rather than do its best to recover public money which has been wasted, the Nationalist Party said in a statement Saturday.

Abela has not accepted the judgment by which a court of law has annulled the deal which saw three hospitals being passed on to the private sector, the PN said.

Added to this, Abela has not accepted the conclusions that the Auditor General has already found in two reports in 2020 and 2021 on the tenders given by the government to Vitals.

In July 2020, the Auditor General had written: “The evidence indicating collusive action between the parties acting on behalf of Government with the VGH renders the entire process dubious, irrespective of whether the process was in adherence with procedural and regulatory requirements.”

In December 2021, the Auditor General had written

 “This dichotomy allowed for the concession to remain an unimplementable project, an insurmountable challenge and irreparable situation for the Government to manage, whose administrative and political weaknesses were all too readily exploited by the VGH.”

Abela already has the answers that he has been looking for, the PN said.

The PN called on the Prime Minister to condemn the deal the government reached with Vitals and so what is possible to recoup the money that was “fraudulently” lost.

The statement was signed by the PN’s three members on the Public Accounts Committee: Darren Carabott, David Agius and Graham Bencini.