Prime Minister Joseph Muscat promised this morning that the government would get to the root of the issue over weak concrete at Mater Dei Hospital and how the former government's contract with builders Skanska included a waiver of responsibility.
Speaking at a Labour event at the Rialto in Cospicua, Dr Muscat stressed that in the same way as Simon Busuttil had sought credit for the PN for the interconnector, so too, he and the PN would have to assume responsibility for what happened at Mater Dei.
"If the interconnector was yours, so is Mater Dei," he said to cheering.
Dr Muscat said he could not blame anyone for getting the impression that everybody was trying to shift the blame (il-hmar iwahhal f'dembu). Former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had claimed the waiver never came up before the Cabinet.
John Dalli, who was health minister in 2009 when the contract was signed, said he was not told about it, and was told about the agreement six weeks after it was signed.
Dr Muscat said Brian St John, the former president of the Foundation for Medical Services and now head of the PN's commercial arm, had himself said in an e-mail in 2011 that Skanska could not be made to pay for defects costing €200,000 in the hospital reservoir, because of the waiver. At the time the FMS had written to Skansks saying it would withhold payment of €200,00 to cover repairs to a reservoir, caused by weak concrete. But then the waiver came into play.
This, Dr Muscat said, was the man who had locked documents in a safe. 'Maybe,' he said, 'we even have pictures of him tearing up papers'.
Dr Muscat hit out at the PN for opposing investment in Malta, in the same way as it had resisted the Citizenship by Investment scheme.
The government, he said, would not shirk its responsibilities. He insisted that the new university should be built in the south of Malta, which for the PN had only been good enough for dumps and polluting activities.
The government, he said, was are ready to compromise n the university plans. It was working to address people's concerns, possibly reducing the size of the site in Zonqor and look for other spaces in the south.
Using ODZ was a last resort, he said, but he noted that under the PN 12,000 permits utside development zones were issued.
Turing to the case against the husband of former minister Giovanna Debono, Dr Muscat said it would be a court that would decided whether the whistleblower or Simon Busuttil were saying the truth about this case.
It was clear that the whistleblower had met Dr Busuttil. Dr Busuttil had not told him to go report the matter but that he should not have accepted to do more work if he knew that PN was going to lose the election.
It was quickly becoming apparent why the PN had not introduced whisleblower legislation while in government, Dr Muscat said.
Dr Busuttil had attacked the police, the Attorney General and the court. He was trying to get the message across to prospective whistleblowers that he was ready to attack. It was very serious that Dr Busuttil was trying to influence a witness, Dr Muscat said. The government would guarantee protection to these people.