Contracts which handed three state hospitals over to Vitals Global Healthcare were riddled with "coincidences" which "stank" of corruption, the Nationalist Party said today.
Shadow ministers Claudette Buttigieg and Chris Said and electoral candidate David Thake highlighted the fact that contracts with VGH were signed just two days before Minister without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri set up companies in Panama.
They called on parliament's health committee to go over the contracts with a fine-toothed comb, and said they would be writing to committee chairman and PL MP Etienne Grech asking him to begin scrutinising the deals.
The agreements, which involve St Luke's, Karin Grech and Gozo general hospitals, have prompted a storm of questions in recent weeks, with the government's decision to publish heavily redacted versions of the contracts in question failing to quell controversy.
Ms Buttigieg accused Vitals Global Healthcare director Ram Tumuluri of being nothing other than a front for a secretive company whose owner was unknown. She highlighted the fact that the company had been registered in Malta just a few days before it was handed the lucrative government contracts.
The deal will see VGH receive at least €55 million every year for 30 years in exchange for running the three hospitals. "Who will be pocketing this money?" Ms Buttigieg asked.
The PN representatives said Mr Tumuluri was wanted for fraud in Canada, and had the government done its due diligence, this would have been immediately revealed.
According to these document T&V Hospitality of which Mr Tumuluri was a directot failed to pay tax, deleted all accounting records and took credit card deposits for Christmas reservations.
David Thake said that Mr Tumuluri, as director of T&V Hospitality, had certain obligations which he did failed to observe. “Though Mr Tumuluri is technically correct saying that none his companies filed for bankruptcy, this is due to the fact that he just walked out due to the huge debts it had accumulated,” he said.
Moreover, the PN candidate said that this was not the only case in which Mr Tumuluri acted in such manner.
“I have made public a telephone call which I made to Mr Tumuluri’s mortgage manager, in which the latter confirmed that he had left when another company found itself in the red,” he added.
Health Ministry reacts
In a reaction, the Ministry of Health said the partnership with Vitals would lead to a transformation for the better for patients in Malta and Gozo.
It pointed out that the government is being partnered by leading names in the medical field, including Partners Healthcare International which run teaching hospitals at Harvard University and have institutions in 40 countries.
The ministry also pointed out that former Nationalist MP Albert Fenech and gynecologist Mark Brincat now sit on the medical board of Vitals Global Healthcare.
The ministry said the PN wants to go back to the situation when it was in government and when patients were treated in hospital corridors, there was a long waiting list for operations and medicines were out of stock.