The government tries to be bullish in its attempts to make up for its total debacle on the three hospitals’ deal.

Health Minister Chris Fearne told Parliament this past week that the government is doing its best to recoup “every cent” that it is owed following the double decision taken by the courts of law this year – first in February, when a judge described the arrangement for the transfer of St Luke’s, Gozo General and Karen Grech hospitals to the private sector as having been “fraudulent”; and then in October, when the Court of Appeal spoke of “collusion” in the said agreement.

Were it not for these court judgments, on 30 October we would have heard the Finance Minister, in his budget speech, say how many more millions would have been handed over for the running of these hospitals in 2024, while his colleagues banged on the desks in support. So for Fearne to speak as if his government has no culpability for the fiasco is appalling.

The government is trying hard to make it appear that it held no political responsibility for the way the three hospitals were handed over and how so much money were given in subsequent years with Malta not getting what it was due. It never blames Joseph Muscat or Konrad Mizzi for what happened, but at the same time it tries to distance itself from the 2015 agreement, signed by a different Labour administration with a different prime minister and a different health minister.

But it was still “Labour” who did it, and the new incumbents Robert Abela and Chris Fearne continued to defend and support the deal reached by their predecessors, each year dedicating more millions of euros of public money for the running of the hospitals. It was only after a judge, in February, rescinded the deal that the government – Abela and Fearne primarily – changed tack.

Now they are both trying to take credit for “chasing every cent”, when they were the ones who handed over so much money from public coffers, even though they were being told that Malta was not benefiting from the deal and that, as the court later ruled, contractual obligations were not being fulfilled.

The scandal will not go away anytime soon.

We have developments almost on a daily basis.

A few days ago we had former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat anticipating that it would be a “second Egrant” for him when the magistrate responsible for the inquiry into the deal concludes her investigation. His attempts to discredit the magistrate and try to force her recusal already indicate that he believes he will not be happy with the findings.

An inquiry into accusations that Muscat or someone in his family were the owners of a third company opened in Panama – the other two belonged to his then closest allies Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi – had found no evidence that linked the former Prime Minister to the Egrant ownership. That Muscat chose to bring up the Egrant issue again is interesting. He’s telling us that he considers himself as the victim, when he was the chief perpetrator of the now defunct hospitals deal.

Muscat has also said that what ruined the agreement were “hidden vested interests”, although he did not elaborate. It is a feeble attempt on his part to try to deflect the blame on others when he and his government are solely responsible for entering the deal, and Abela and his government are solely responsible for proceeding on the same lines.

This week we then had the State Advocate, Attorney General and the police commissioner say they can do nothing about the hospitals’ deal, in spite of the damning court rulings. They said so in counter-protests to the one presented a week earlier by the Opposition Leader, Bernard Grech, and MP Adrian Delia, who had called on these authorities to take action against all those involved in the deal which cost the Maltese public €400 million.

Grech and Delia described the (non) action by the three institutions as an “abdication” of their constitutional responsibilities and a confirmation that they are not independent of the government as they ought to be, but are controlled by it. They are not defending the Maltese people as they should, the PN charged; instead, they are taking the government’s side. The PN has now filed a second protest in court to challenge the position taken by the three institutions.

So, as said earlier, the story is far from being over. Many more chapters still need to be written. We’re only at the beginning.