The position of George Gregory, the newly appointed CEO of Malta Enterprise who was only elevated to the post on the 12th of August, is not tenable, the Nationalist Party said during a conference on Tuesday.
PN MPs Adrian Delia and Jerome Caruana Cilia spoke out in criticism towards the decision by the Prime Minister to appoint Gregory to the position. “The Nationalist Party believes that Gregory’s position is not tenable.”
Referring to an article published by the newspaper ‘Il-Mument’, Delia said that Gregory had played a role in the Vitals hospitals deal, commenting that he was “factually largely involved in the greatest fraud to ever take place in our country”.
Expanding further on this point, Delia said that during the first stage of the project, Gregory was one of the people involved in the strategic assessment to establish a plan for a “world-class health sector”. The MP added that Vitals was a company which had only just been registered, and had no experience at all in any sector, not just the health sector. He remarked that the company also had a registered capital of “just €1,000”, but was still in contention to be awarded millions through this deal.
Delia continued that with all this being known, Vitals was still entrusted with the handling of the country’s hospitals. “Gregory was involved from the beginning,” he remarked. He continued that one of Gregory’s primary responsibilities was with the valuation committee, for which he offered his services as a consultant, Delia said.
Acknowledging this, Delia said that Gregory had the obligation to show the red flag and make it clear that Vitals could “absolutely not” be chosen for this contract if Malta was to achieve its goal and have an excellent health sector, “but instead, the opposite happened”, and they decided that Vitals was the best choice.
Delia said that Gregory was also responsible for auditing Vitals Global Healthcare’s accounts, and remarked that these audits were not prepared on time and that no government authority checked on these accounts.
The MP said that Abela “surreally” chose to appoint someone involved in the Vitals scandal as the CEO of Malta Enterprise. “It is surreal, and it is not a coincidental decision,” he remarked. He continued that this was done with the same primary thoughts behind the Vitals ordeal, which was not to see to the interests of Malta and the people, but rather to adhere to Abela’s political interests and have people he could influence holding important positions. Delia referred to the situation as “musical chairs”, and made reference to Kurt Farrugia also being moved from one position to another, having been recently appointed as the CEO of Transport Malta.
Caruana Cilia remarked that Gregory was not limited to the role of consultant and document preparation, but that his role was “more profound and more influential”. He continued that Malta Enterprise has an important role in attracting foreign investment to the country and in contributing to a sustainable economy with more employment opportunities.
He commented that Malta’s attractiveness in this regard has dropped significantly over the past years and that Gregory’s appointment will have a "direct impact" on Malta’s reputation.
The MPs concluded that a PN government would base appointments on merit and integrity, “regardless of political colour”.