PAC agrees to discuss Vitals contracts after Auditor General investigation

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has agreed to discuss contracts signed between Vitals Global Healthcare (VGH) and the government, for the running of St Luke’s, Karin Grech and the Gozo hospitals once they have been evaluated by the office of the Auditor General.

PAC Chairman Tonio Fenech, said that if the committee could agree to add the letter sent by the Medical Association of Malta and UHM to the request made by the government, as well as ask that the investigation be given precedence over other investigations, then the committee could go ahead and await the outcome of the investigation before discussing the contracts.

Charles Deguara, the Auditor General however replied that he did not feel that it is right for the order in which cases are investigated to be changed, adding that the move would be a short-sighted one that could lead to a dangerous precedent being set.

“We have always worked in a chronological order and I think it is important to stick with this method because we will then be accused of intentionally changing the order in which we carry out these investigations. If we changed the order, we would be doing a disservice towards this committee,” he said.

Charles Mangion responded by saying that the government has no problem asking the Auditor General to investigate the request made by the MAM and UHM and that the Auditor General should be given the autonomy and the right to investigate the issue within the time frames that he sees fit.

Tourism minister Edward Zammit-Lewis agreed that the Auditor General could not be asked to change the order in which he investigates cases. He reassured members from both unions that the contracts would be discussed in a parliamentary debate, would be investigated by the Auditor General and would be discussed in the PAC once the investigation has been completed.

Fenech said that there was agreement that the contract should first go to the Auditor General, adding that he agreed that his office was better equipped to investigate a matter of this nature.

“We can have a much broader investigation if both the request by the government and the letter sent by MAM and the UHM are sent to the Auditor General before they are discussed here,” said Fenech.

Deguara stressed that his office would only be able to judge issues it had competence in and warned that his office does not have the competence to judge issues of workers’ rights.

Earlier today, health minister Chris Fearne asked the Public Accounts Committee to invite the Auditor General to scrutinise the contracts signed between the Vitals Global Healthcare and the government. The Nationalist Party has said that the move was intended to postpone the issue till after the election, since the Auditor General has said that his office has a number of investigations which are pending and as a result, it would take a long time to evaluate the contracts.