[WATCH] Konrad Mizzi refuses to answer in Vitals court case initiated by Adrian Delia
Former health minister Konrad Mizzi refuses to answer questions when he is summoned as a witness in the court case initiated by Nationalist MP Adrian Delia to have the hospitals concession contract with Vitals rescinded


Konrad Mizzi's signature appears on an agreement that committed government to a €100 million termination clause with Steward Healthcare over the hospitals concession.
The agreement was presented in court today by Mizzi's former permanent secretary Ronald Mizzi.
The former minister refused to answer any questions put to him when he appeared in the civil case initiated by former Opposition leader Adrian Delia to rescind the hospitals contract signed with VGH and subsequently transferred to Steward. Konrad Mizzi only read out a statement in which he said any decisions were approved by Cabinet.
However, testifying before the former minister was his then permanent secretary Ronald Mizzi, who insisted that only the ministry’s legal counsel was involved in the negotiations with Steward and Bank of Valletta.
Ronald Mizzi appeared clueless over the €100 million penalty clause the government would incur if the hospitals concession had to be terminated for whatever reason.
“BOV had certain concerns regarding the case; over how the court might find these contracts to be null and void, or politically a change in government might nullify the contract, so they wanted extra security,” Ronald Mizzi explained.
Asked by Delia who would have known about this clause inside the ministry, Mizzi said no one below his position would have gotten involved in the negotiations.
But pressed further, Ronald Mizzi admitted he only found out about the clause through a Cabinet memo.
“You came to know about this clause as a fait accompli?” Delia asked, to which the former permanent secretary to Konrad Mizzi confirmed.
Ronald Mizzi testified that he wasn’t the one who gave the brief to the legal counsel to take on the negotiations.
Asked whether credit facilities were already in place when Steward were roped in to take over the VGH hospitals concession, Mizzi replied: “I don't know what to tell you.”
Konrad Mizzi was responsible for the concession agreement that saw three public hospitals – St Luke’s, Karen Grech, and Gozo General Hospital – being transferred to Vitals Global Healthcare (VGH) in 2015.
VGH eventually fell short on its commitments and the controversial multi-million-euro concession was transferred to American company Steward Healthcare.
READ ALSO: Delia calls on Prime Minister not to be an accomplice with Konrad Mizzi on hospitals deal
Delia is arguing that the VGH deal was vitiated and wants the concession agreement torn up to have the hospitals returned back to the public.
A damning National Audit Office report on the tendering process that awarded the hospitals concession to VGH found collusion after some of the investors in the consortium had, months before the request for proposals was published, entered into a memorandum of understanding with Malta Enterprise over a similar deal.
The NAO also found that VGH had secured a letter of commitment for financing from a bank in India even before the government published the RFP, raising further doubts on the fairness of the tendering process.
In a short statement Mizzi read out in court, he said that Cabinet was involved in all decisions.
He then refused to answer any of the questions put to him because of “pending magisterial inquiries”.
Mizzi’s lawyers argued that they advised their client not to answer any questions unless he is given full disclosure on the pending inquiries.