Prime Minister Robert Abela has said that the Court of Appeal’s judgement on the Steward hospitals deal strengthens the government’s arguments in arbitration proceedings it has against Steward at the International Chamber of Commerce in order to recover funds it had paid to it.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday in a debate called on the aforementioned appeal judgement, Abela reiterated what the government said earlier in the day in pointing out that the government did not wait for Monday’s sentence in order to take control of the hospitals back from Steward.

Abela also said that it is a lie that the government is yet to file any proceedings to recoup what it had paid to Steward, noting that such a case has been filed and is ongoing before the International Chamber of Commerce.

He said that if it results that Vitals Global Healthcare or their successors Steward had received money in exchange for services or investments which were not fulfilled, then the government wants to get that money back.

The Prime Minister said that that one of the questions which people will ask is why the government decided to continue the contract with Steward until it did.

He said that an evaluation on the contract had found that – particularly due to the €100 million exit clause which Steward had in its favour due to a secret agreement drafted by former Health Minister Konrad Mizzi if the contract were to be terminated – it would be more worthwhile to wait for the outcome of Delia’s case.

Abela noted that when the topic of Steward was debated, he was accused of defending Steward for the simple fact that he had mentioned what services were being offered.  He said that now the Court of Appeal had pointed out that Steward had started to offer a number of services, thereby confirming his own words.

The Prime Minister said that he had always been clear with Steward when they wanted more money for the concession: “you know what you took on, you aren’t going to get one more cent.”

He said that he would be lying if he said that the court’s sentence was not one of the clear motivating factors behind taking back control of the hospitals through a controlled step-in, but said that the priority then was to ensure that the health service continues without interruptions. 

“We wanted to give peace of mind to all the workers engaged by Steward, and they have absolute peace of mind that their jobs and conditions are protected.  This is the biggest difference compared to what the PN did every time it was in government when they chose to stop a concession or an operator stopped it: They’d give you an early retirement scheme or leave you out in the cold – we saw that people continued in their jobs,” Abela said.

He accused the PN of attempting to create “political spin” by mentioning the €400 million figure as that which the government needs to recoup, noting that the PN is not taking into account the services which were given by Steward.

He said that the PN never quoted that €400 million figure in its initial motion in Parliament, and questioned why it keeps going with this “gimmick”, noting that even the Auditor General in three volumes of reports on Steward had never mentioned this figure.

Abela noted that the Court of Appeal had given an important tool to the government in its ICC proceedings when it said that Steward cannot try and absolve itself of what Vitals had been responsible for and must cover their responsibilities as well.

He noted that the operating costs of the Gozo General Hospital and Karin Grech Hospital had not decreased when compared to what was being paid to Steward.

Abela concluded that today the government is giving health services which didn’t even exist in 2013, and is committed to giving more and more services and putting in more investment so that more lives can be saved.