Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said Saturday that Prime Minister Robert Abela played an essential role in the fraudulent concession of the three hospitals in his capacity as Prime Minister since 2021, as he continued forking out money to Steward, amounting to around €280 million out of the €400 million the PN says was "stolen".

Grech spoke on NET FM on Saturday, saying that Abela reportedly knew that the Vitals/Steward deal was fraudulent back in 2021, yet his government continued to spend millions while defending the deal.

He said that the deal was to build a new hospital in Gozo, refurbish St Luke’s Hospital, turn Karin Grech into a state-of-the-art hospital, and yet, from 2015 to 2023, in eight years, nothing was done, and nothing was seen to be done.

“They were part of the deal and could not stop it despite the breach of conditions. They were pocketing from it,” Grech said, referring to government.

He said that Abela did everything to continue giving money to the concessionaires despite being aware that nothing was being done. Abela chose to keep defrauding the Maltese citizen.

Grech said government did all it could so that the institutions do not work, saying that Abela gave direct orders for no investigations to be done, and no information would be given during the magisterial inquiry.

Grech said Abela failed to control the magistrate who continued to investigate, and “because he could not control her, he attacked her.”

“The Prime Minister is complicit in the biggest fraud of the country. He is controlled, compromised, and bound to serve criminals, who have pocketed and stolen from the Maltese people’s health,” Grech said.

Grech continued that aside from recouping the €400 million lost, a PN government’s priorities in the health sector would make the investment Steward should have done on St Luke’s, build a new general hospital in Gozo, build a new mental health hospital near Mater Dei, and provide deserving salaries and conditions for all health workers, and to attract more people to the sector.

He also said that advanced medicine would also be added in the free government formulary, should the PN be in government, as currently, only generic medicine is being offered to the individual for free, which is not always the best option for treatment.

“Gozo deserves a quality hospital, as Gozitans are not second-class citizens,” Grech said.

Grech spoke about today’s commencement of the early voting, for those who will not be able to vote in the coming week.

He said that the PN has proposals and plans for each locality, including in Gozo, which are unique to the locality’s characteristics.

Grech said that today is an important day where people have started sealing their decisions for Local Councillors, where he appealed to the public to vote for all the candidates running on the PN’s ticket.