Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said, after a meeting with Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa, that the police are not conducting a separate investigation from the Magisterial inquiry looking into the hospitals deal.

“The commissioner confirmed with us that he and the police force are not conducting a separate investigation from the Magisterial Inquiry [looking] into the fraud, theft from our hospitals, regarding the collusion that occurred between high government officials and those who were given the hospitals and €400 million from the people’s funds.”

The three hospitals – St Luke’s, Karen Grech Gozo General – were first handed over to Vitals, which later passed them on to Steward Healthcare in 2015. The deal has now been rescinded, with the Nationalist Party now calling upon the government to retrieve the €400 million that were passed on to Vitals/Steward between 2015 and 2021.

Grech and Delia, with the latter having initiated the court case in 2019, are both urging the police to take action against those “who failed to protect the national interest”, as the Appeals Court judgment said.

Grech explained that following yesterday’s court judgment, “there are people who have no interest in justice being served”. 

He continued that top government officials should have been responsible in carrying out their political duties and ensure that the private companies that had been handed over the administration of the three hospitals fulfilled their duties. “Instead, they ran away with €400 million and it’s like nothing happened”, Grech said.

“Then there is Robert Abela who defended Steward and Vitals and ignored our judicial protest which we presented so that the Government stops paying them, yet he kept paying them despite knowing and seeing that for long years they had done nothing,” he said.

The PN leader said the police commissioner had confirmed “there is no independent investigation occurring outside the magisterial inquiry and that, he said, his hands shall remain tied until the inquiry comes to a close”.

The magisterial inquiry was opened at the request not by the State, but by the NGO Repubblika. Grech also mentioned that the legal action which ultimately led to the annulment of the deal had been opened by Adrian Delia, “not by the government to defend the people of Malta and Gozo”. 

What the commissioner had confirmed meant that the country’s institutions are failing the people, despite PM Abela repeatedly advising to “let the institutions work”. Grech said his party will keep insisting that “they are failing us”.

 

Concluding his comments, Bernard Grech urged the public to attend Sunday’s national protest with the scope of getting the €400 million sum back and for responsibility to be shouldered by the government’s top officials.

Earlier, before his meeting with the commissioner, Grech had said that Prime Minister Robert Abela, his predecessor Joseph Muscat and other top Labour people are “complicit” in the “fraudulent” deal and must pay the consequences of their actions.

Grech, accompanied by MP Adrian Delia, on Tuesday went to the police headquarters to present a copy of the judgment delivered on Monday in which a court of appeal confirmed February’s ruling that the deal the government had reached in 2015 for the transfer of three public hospitals to the private sector is to be annulled.

Although the deal was initially signed with Joseph Muscat as Prime Minister and Konrad Mizzi as Health Minister, the government led by Robert Abela as Prime Minister and Chris Fearne as Health Minister continued to pump millions of euros to Steward, Grech and Delia they said before the meeting.

Grech had said the "historic sentence" not only confirmed February's judgement, but also added that top government officials were complicit. He said the government shamefully did not accept to have a vote taken on the matter in Monday’s parliamentary sitting, as had been proposed by the Opposition.

“They will keep defending Vitals and Steward and not work in the national interest,” Grech said, urging the police commissioner to do his job.

Apart from Muscat, Mizzi, Abela and Fearne, Grech also mentioned the current finance minister Clyde Caruana and his predecessor Edward Scicluna as being “complicit in this fraudulent deal”. Collusion existed before, during and after this deal because they kept giving them millions, even after we got to know the information we know today.

We are going to keep working and fighting on this issue, so that justice served to the victory of the Maltese population, Grech said.

Delia told the press that the Prime Minister, police chief and Attorney General all have fingers pointed at them following the judgment that was delivered on Monday. He said that the police should have already taken action when the original judgment was given in February, but now that the appeals court has also given its ruling, the police commissioner cannot hide anymore.

The truth has emerged and the people responsible must face the consequences, he said. If there had been any doubt, now this has been extinguished, he added, prior to the meeting.

We expect the police to send for the people involved one by one, interrogate them and take the necessary action on how €400 million of the people’s money were wasted on this deal, Delia said.

We are going to keep working and fighting on this issue, so that justice served to the victory of the Maltese population, Grech said prior to meeting Gafa.