Government ‘morally, legally obliged’ to seek damages from MDH concrete suppliers

Shadow health minister Claudette Buttigieg today said that the government had a moral and legal obligation to immediately begin legal proceedings against all persons responsible for the inferior concrete which had been used in the construction of the Accident & Emergency Department at Mater Dei Hospital.

Buttigieg said that the government had to ensure not a cent of tax money be used for the remedial works required, arguing that this should be charged to the companies that defrauded the country, as confirmed in a report compiled by Judge emeritus Philip Sciberras.

She said that the report reveals that those involved in the procurement of inferior concrete were all high-ranking Labour party officials or had close ties to the party, “effectively bursting Joseph Muscat’s bubble.”

She accused the Prime Minister of having his back against the wall, “trying to sully the names of other people to draw attention away from the terrible Żonqor decision”.

The shadow minister accused Muscat of trying to protect someone, after both he and health and energy minister Konrad Mizzi declared that government could not sue Skanska Malta Joint Venture, the construction firm that completed the hospital, due to a waiver in the project closure agreement of 2009.