Every detail that emerges from that scandalous agreement reached between the government and Vitals Global Healthcare points in one direction only: the deal should be called off.

The parliamentary debate on the matter on Wednesday predictably got nowhere. All we got was a conditional promise from Health Minister Chris Fearne to show the Opposition leader the final agreement between Vitals and Steward Healthcare. Presumably, the country should be grateful for that. But this is a matter of national interest.

The Medical Association of Malta said there is nothing to show for the millions of euros the government paid to Vitals over the past two years. It remarked: “In view of the serious circumstances facing our healthcare services, the MAM would like the government not to give its consent for the transfer.” Still, that should only be the beginning.

This agreement on the transfer of three State hospitals to a company unknown in the healthcare industry has been treated like a State secret. It was really a Labour secret. The agreement squandered the country’s assets, given away on humiliating conditions all paid for through taxpayers’ money. Such contracts are wholly unacceptable and, yet, it all sounds like it happened before.

Only last month, the much-vaunted US company Crane Currency got sold off for $800 million. We were assured the deal will not affect the future of the Maltese plant. The local plant was one of the major selling points. What else could it be when Malta Enterprise offered to finance a €27 million tailor-made factory in Ħal Far and the government agreed to guarantee most of the loans needed by Crane to purchase machinery and plant equipment?

It did not go unnoticed that Kasco Ltd, owned by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, is Malta’s largest agent in the supply of printing equipment and paper.

Now it has happened again on a much bigger scale, a lucrative €2.1 billion contract is changing hands. Someone negotiating on the government side gave the ‘investor’ such a good deal he sold it again within two years. Vitals will not be leaving much behind, except for two hospitals the government would have to pay €80 million to get them back when the concession is up.

This country is not a fiefdom but Labour in government is running it like it was, milking it dry. It is useless to ask the National Audit Office to investigate the deal. The Public Accounts Committee did ask for that more than a year ago but the audit has had to wait because the Auditor General  conducts investigations in chronological order. And all this took place before the latest shocking details emerged.

The country deserves answers. Why has a so-called socialist party done the unimaginable and sold off State healthcare to the private sector? Those who negotiated the deal, those who signed it, all must be made to answer very serious questions.

This calls for a full-scale inquiry. It is either utter incompetence on the part of the Maltese negotiators, who should be given the boot before they squander any more of the country’s assets, or a case of, as many are beginning to suspect, blatant in-your-face corruption.

This country has had enough of white elephants and red herrings. Now it demands answers.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial