More than two years after the discovery of weak concrete at Mater Dei Hospital, the government is yet to launch a legal case against Swedish construction company Skanska, despite having announced that it would sue.

This was confirmed by Health Minister Chris Fearne when he was asked by The Sunday Times of Malta about the state of play on the issue, which first arose in August 2014.

The alarm bells were sounded during preparatory works to build a storey above the hospital’s emergency department.

This avenue will only be sought if the resolution mechanism is extinguished

“At the moment, legal teams from the Maltese government and Skanska are trying to settle the issue through a dispute resolution mechanism which was part of the project closure agreement,” Dr Fearne said yesterday.

“Though we have filed for arbitration, this avenue will only be sought if the resolution mechanism is extinguished and no agreement reached.”

This situation appears to be in contrast with the tone struck by the Health Minister a few months ago, when he called a news conference to announce the government’s intention to sue Skanska after the latter refuted claims that weak concrete was used during construction.

Though Dr Fearne refused to give any figures on the compensation sought by the government, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat once mentioned a claim of €150 million.

When the controversy erupted, the government took the Nationalist Party to task, accusing it of scuttling any chance of compensation through a waiver clause signed in February 2009 as part of the project closure agreement with Skanska.

However, the government later backtracked, citing the advice given to it by the Attorney General, who questioned the waiver’s validity. In June 2015, the Prime Minister held talks with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfvén in a bid to avoid years of litigation and reach a settlement with the Swedish contractors. However, the talks failed to resolve the matter.

The visit followed the findings of an inquiry which had established that the concrete certification at Mater Dei was fraudulent, since the concrete’s quality was well below standard.

Last April, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil questioned the impartiality of the inquiry board, saying one of the members, Karl Cini, was the same person who had taken steps to set up Panama companies for Minister Konrad Mizzi.