What has been emerging of late about the Vitals Global Healthcare deal is truly shocking. A deal being sold as a €200 million investment by private investors to upgrade three public hospitals is turning out to be nothing other than a sham and raising suspicion of corruption. Rather than private investors investing in our national heath, we discovered we have already paid over €50 million in under two years with nothing to show for it.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his government entered into a secret memorandum of understanding five months before a public call for proposals was made. As soon as it was signed, the parties formed companies using an opaque web of shareholding as a screen.

We only got to know about the parties behind the opaque companies when one of the shareholders, fearing he was being left out in the cold, took the others to court. This was pure chance, very similar to the Panama Papers.

We also got to know that those involved had no experience with the running of hospitals. We also found out that the preferred original shareholders will make a killing once the hospitals are sold to another company. In other words, for Muscat’s socialist government, public health is like any other marketable commodity, to be traded at will.

To sell the Vitals’ deal, the government has always stated the country will not have to fork out €200 million over 30 years. However, we now find out that taxpayers will be paying €180,000 a day for 30 years or €2 billion over the period. Small wonder Muscat tried all sorts of trickery to keep the hospitals deal out of the public gaze.

Since Vitals have not reached the established milestones, what is keeping the government from declaring the contract null and void and taking back the hospitals? And in whose interest was this sordid and shady deal made in the first place, knowing, as we now do, that Vitals had neither the competence nor the financial clout to honour the contract? The deal most certainly was not in the public interest.