ICC judgment does not absolve Labour of its sins

The International Court of Arbitration, operated by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), rejected on Monday Steward Health Care’s claim that it was owed €148 million by the Maltese government. The arbitration centre also ruled that the Maltese government owed Steward €5 million—the balance left between services rendered by Steward and services paid for by the Maltese State. 

Like everyone else in the country, MaltaToday is not privy to the judgment. The only people who know what the judgment contains are a select few in government. 

What we know so far is based solely on what the Maltese government chose to say after it received the ruling on Monday. The judgment is not public—such rulings by the ICC tribunal are not automatically public—although Prime Minister Robert Abela has committed to publish it once lawyers give him the clearance. 

Publication of the judgment is in the public interest. It is crucial that people have all the information at hand when deciding who to believe, what to believe and whether Malta was dealt a fair deal by the ruling. At this stage any further comment on the judgment itself will be worthless since we do not know what it contains. Within this context it was premature for Labour MEP Alex Agius Saliba to write to MEPs to inform them of the outcome of the arbitration, unless he was granted privileged access to the ruling by the Office of the Prime Minister. 

But there is one thing that the ICC judgment will never alter and that is the political responsibility the Labour Party has to shoulder for the hospitals mess. 

It remains a fact, irrespective of what the ICC decided, that Gozo has remained without a state-of-the-art hospital, and St Luke’s and Karin Grech hospitals are today in the same sorry state they were when the government awarded the concession to Vitals 10 years ago.  

It remains a fact that in August 2019, then minister Konrad Mizzi, with the full knowledge of Keith Schembri and Joseph Muscat, but behind Cabinet’s back, entered into a side agreement with Steward that obliged the government to pay the company €100 million if the contract was rescinded by the courts. It was on the strength of this agreement that Steward filed a compensation claim with the ICC. Thankfully, we were told by the prime minister that Steward’s claim for €148 million was rejected by the ICC. Nonetheless, the truth is that had there not been collusion between senior Labour government officials and Steward back then, the Maltese state would have been spared the hassle of arbitration proceedings. 

It remains a fact that when the concession was awarded to Vitals Global Healthcare at the end of 2015, the process was vitiated from the get go—a “predetermined” deal, the National Audit Office described it in one of its three detailed investigations. 

It remains a fact that several politicians, including former prime minister Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi, and several high-ranking former public officials and businesspersons are facing serious criminal charges of corruption, fraud and money laundering in connection with the hospitals concession. 

It remains a fact that what was supposed to be a flagship project of the Muscat administration ended up being a flagship fiasco that left the country’s public healthcare system in the lurch. 

It remains a fact that Malta’s Court of Appeal confirmed the termination of the hospitals contract and the judges made no attempt to sugar-coat their disgust at the government’s collusion with Vitals/Steward, in violation of its duties to the country and the electorate.  

We quote from Appeals Court ruling: “We have seen that the granting of the concession to the appellant companies was not the result of deceit by either party, but the result of collusion between the two parties, which happened not only when the appellant companies were selected as the preferred bidder after being given access to privileged information, and when the concession was granted when it was known to be unachievable, but also when the agreement was supposed to have been carried out, although nothing happened, the persons meant to protect the nation’s interests, instead of protecting those interests, gave extension after extension to avoid what was in fact a one-page agreement, instead of ‘the real deal’ becoming public and continued to pay millions of euros to the appellant companies, although these were not fulfilling their contractual obligations.” 

These are facts that cannot be ignored; suppressed or forgotten. The ICC victory, as government is calling it, does not absolve Labour from the sins it committed. Instead of euphoria we would rather see the Labour Party atone for its mistakes.