Eyebrows were raised, particularly in Italy, with regard to a project to build and run a specialised private hospital at Smart City Malta.
The project, launched last year by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the then health minister Konrad Mizzi, is the brainchild of Synesis Ltd, a company formed by Stephen Carter, a Maltese businessman, and two Rome-based lawyers, Mario Racco and Francesco Rosi.
Giovanni Rusciano, another Italian, is serving as the main consultant behind the Maltese project, although he does not appear as a shareholder.
Both Mr Rosi and Mr Rusciano are closely associated with Rome’s private hospital IDI (Istituto Dermatologico Italiano), which had to be saved by the Vatican from financial collapse three years ago after about €800 million in State funds in exchange for public services disappeared. Hundreds of medical staff were fired due to the ensuing crisis.
According to an investigation by Italian State TV Rai Tre, Mr Rosi used to handle the hospital’s financial arrangements, particularly related to a Church order that once owned the hospital.
Mr Rusciano took care of procurement and tenders.
Mr Rosi was never investigated by the Italian police, but Mr Rusciano was arrested several times and is being investigated, together with a number of other hospital managers in connection with allegations of misappropriation of funds.
Rai Tre’s Emanuele Bellano, a journalist who has been following the IDI story for a number of years, told the Times of Malta that health industry circles in Rome suspected that funds which disappeared from the Rome hospital could somehow have ended up in the Smart City hospital project.
“The people involved in the Maltese project are too close to the IDI’s debacle and it is very odd that the same type of hospital is being projected for Malta by practically the same people,” Mr Bellano said.
A spokesman for the Maltese project said that what was reported so far was incorrect. “Neither the shareholders, nor the directors, nor any of our consultants are involved in the IDI case. This is speculation that has no element of news reporting, because it refers to unfounded representations,” the spokesman said.
Asked whether Mr Rusciano was ever under investigation with regard to alleged misappropriation of IDI funds, the spokesman said he was. “At the end of preliminary investigations, it was found that Mr Rusciano is entirely unconnected with the facts of bankruptcy that affected the owners of IDI, also due to the fact that he left the hospital in May 2009,” the spokesman said.
The business structure of the company behind the Maltese project is very complex. Research by this newspaper into the records of the Malta Financial Services Authority shows that while the mother company behind the project, Synesis Ltd, has Mr Carter and two Italian lawyers as directors, it is owned by three separate companies with different shareholding structures. While the majority shareholding is held by the Italians through Omnia Quality Holdings Ltd, part of the shareholding is held by Gloteks Ltd, which is owned by a nominee company called Classic Services Ltd. Among the directors of the nominee company is lawyer Aaron Mifsud Bonnici, who sits on a number of government-related companies.
During the launch, it was said that the 200-room, state-of-the-art hospital at Smart City would open its doors in 2017. The date has since changed. Saying work on the project was in progress, a spokesman for Synesis Ltd said “the target date for completion of the structure is late 2018”.
ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com