Repubblika informs magistrate leading inquiry into hospitals deal of Auditor General's report

Repubblika has asked the magistrate conducting the inquiry into corruption in the hospitals privatisation deal with Vitals Global Healthcare to take judicial notice of the Auditor General’s third report on the concession and order the arrests of those named by the report.

The report by the Auditor General, which was published yesterday, concluded that disgraced former minister Konrad Mizzi had misled Cabinet about important aspects of the contract and had granted VGH authorisation to transfer the hospitals concession to Steward Healthcare without first seeking approval from Cabinet.

The application filed this morning by lawyer Jason Azzopardi, quotes the report at length, noting that the Auditor General had repeatedly described the transfer process as involving “machinations.” 

Quoting an extract from the report's executive summary, the court filing goes on to read: “The delegation of responsibility for a health concession to the Minister for Tourism was deemed illogical by the NAO and provided a convenient opportunity for the exploitation of Government, creating weakness where there ought to have been none, a weakness all too readily leveraged by the SHC. The most evident exploitation was that secured by the SHC in terms of Government’s liability to pay €100,000,000 and the sum of the lenders’ debt to the Concessionaire in case of court-declared nullity of the concession agreements, irrespective of the party attributed the default, a situation precipitated by the Minister for Tourism and engineered through his misleading of Cabinet”​

Addressing a press conference outside the court, Repubblika president Robert Aquilna told reporters that the report’s findings had justified the NGO’s request for a magisterial inquiry four years ago, as it had identified the deal as a fraud and had named disgraced ex-politicians, primarily former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and former Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi as having conspired to deceive Cabinet.

The report specifically highlighted the fact that Konrad Mizzi, who had been Tourism Minister when the deal was struck, had been allowed to represent the government to the exclusion of the health minister at the time, Chris Fearne. It also outlined several insurances where Muscat and Mizzi had actively colluded behind the health minister’s back. 

Aquilina said that the report had also established beyond reasonable doubt, the criminal intent of the principal figures in the deal “who besides Joseph Muscat, Chris Cardona (who had signed the Memorandum of Understanding with VGH) and Konrad Mizzi also included the complicity of Keith Schembri and Ronald Mizzi, Konrad Mizzi’s Permanent Secretary, without whom it would not have been possible to mislead and deceive the Cabinet.” 

The persons involved in the deal had stolen a large amount of money, to the detriment of the health of Maltese taxpayers, he said. 

Ram Tumuluri had wanted to blow the whistle on the secret deal, Aquilina told the press conference this afternoon, adding that the report concluded that Tumuluri had been pressured in to transferring his shares in VGH to Steward.

The NGO requested the magistrate to include this third report in the acts of inquiry and order the Attorney General to issue an exemption from prosecution under the Permanent Commission Against Corruption Act for persons involved in the deal who are willing to reveal their accomplices.

Repubblika also asked the magistrate to prevent further destruction of the evidence and order the police to arrest and charge the principal figures in the fraud, "including Joseph Muscat, Chris Cardona, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Ronald Mizzi,"  without delay, on the grounds of having formed an ad hoc criminal organisation with mafia characteristics which had indulged in bribery, money laundering and fraud, so as to prevent the suspects from leaving the island, as the NGO said it was informed that some of those named were currently preparing to abscond. 

“Four years ago we asked for a series of magisterial inquiries and Joseph Muscat and his associates did everything they could to prevent this from happening…” Aquilina said, appealing to all public officers to continue to fight for truth and justice.