The government should explain why it had agreed to pay €15million more for hospital beds than it cost the government last year to run three hospitals, outgoing Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said today.
Speaking during a brief phone interview on the Nationalist Party’s Radio 101, Dr Busuttil said new details of the government’s deal were embarrassing.
The Sunday Times of Malta today reported how VGH is to be paid €188,000 a day, or nearly €70 million a year, to provide beds to the government at the Gozo, Karin Grech and St Luke’s hospitals, €15million more than the €55million it cost the government to run the three facilities today.
“Details of the mess the government was concocting before the election are starting to come out,” Dr Busuttil said, adding that he expected Health Minister Chris Fearne to explain the situation to tax payers.
Healthcare should be free and effective and it was the government’s responsibility to ensure nothing jeopardised this, he said.
The full agreement with VGH was leaked to The Sunday Times of Malta after a heavily redacted copy was tabled in Parliament.
The blacked-out sections concealed what Mr Fearne had said were commercially sensitive clauses.
Dr Busuttil this morning said the redacted contract had more blacked-out pages than words.
Dr Busuttil’s Orwellian nightmare
The Opposition leader also weighed in on a criminal complaint against him by the Prime Minister’s top aide, which he said reminded him of George Orwell’s 1984.
“The situation we are living in today is like 1984, where the truth is lies and lies are the truth,” he said.
Keith Schembri filed his criminal complaint on Thursday after the Opposition demanded a magisterial inquiry to investigate money laundering allegations stemming from the Panama Papers.
Dr Busuttil said his court application for a money-laundering investigation was based on publicly-available information.
“Simon Busuttil didn’t make up the Panama Papers,” he said.
Dr Busuttil said the situation was surreal, as the authorities were taking action against him for flagging suspicions, rather than against the person in the wrong.
“This doesn’t happen in democracy, but in dictatorships,” he said.