Partit Demokratiku has called on the Auditor General to investigate the contract between Vitals and the government.
In a statement on Friday it said it was evident that VGH did not honour the agreement and failed to meet the deadlines set. Therefore, the agreement should be considered null and void.
Since the agreement was not honoured, VGH should not have been allowed to sell the concession. The government should have taken over that role with any profit made in the sale placed back in the public coffers.
PD noted that the contents of the Gozo General Hospital, Karin Grech Hospital and St Luke’s Hospital were all sold for a token sum of €1.
A sale of assets for one monetary unit was common practice for the sale of bankrupt companies or companies about to be dissolved, which the Department of Health and the government were not.
Read: Vitals scam: a step too far
“It is certain that the assets of these three hospitals are worth far more than €1. It is also evident that this part of the agreement was redacted in the version presented to Parliament. We need to know why,” it said.
PD said that evidence had yet to be seen that VGH had invested a cent of its own money into upgrading the facilities conceded to it.
The money spent, it said, was recycled government funds paid to it for services it had or was meant to have rendered.
If the investment made so far was funded by the public, it should be valued and the government should demand that sum to be paid back by VGH. That investment had, after all, increased the cost of the concession paid by Steward Healthcare to VGH.
The VGH-government agreement, PD said, was an example of how not to handle a private public partnership concession.
“The whole sorry business has been shrouded in secrecy, the details clouded in obscurity and the Maltese people left mired in doubt about how much we really needed this agreement, and whether it was really done for the public good of for other reasons.”
The party welcomed the agreement reached on the need for a debate on the deal. It agreed with the government that the debate should be held in the plenary so that all MPs be able to have their say on what was still a very obscure issue.
However, it also agreed with the PN’s stand that there should be an opportunity for witnesses to be called and an investigation instigated. This could be done by the Auditor General.