Adrian Delia: ‘If we spend another €700 million on roads, we’ll end up in gridlock’

Families may have been front and centre in Budget 2026, but when Adrian Delia looks at the country’s priorities, he insists the government is missing the bigger picture. 

Malta is overcrowded, stuck in gridlock and losing control of its public finances, he tells me, insisting that taxpayers are all the while still waiting to understand where €900 million in hospital funds have gone. 

The former Nationalist Party leader and Opposition MP has become a central figure in the courts over the Vitals/Steward hospitals deal, having led the case that resulted in the historical annulment of the concession. Today, he accuses the government of presenting the latest arbitration ruling as a victory, despite the decision not overturning any findings of fraud or collusion by the Maltese courts. 

The Nationalist Party has insisted that only a PN in government can recover the money ‘wasted’ on the deal, but Delia suggests the Labour government might have jeopardised this. 

He argues that instead of celebrating, the government should be held accountable for failing to recover funds that “belong to the Maltese people”, while still refusing to publish details of how the money was spent. 

Delia says Budget 2026 offers no answers to the long-term impacts of an economic model he describes as dependent on cheap labour and an ever-growing population. The result, he argues, is a deteriorating quality of life. 

On traffic, he warns that the country risks gridlock if the population keeps on growing and a good traffic management system isn’t implemented.  

Delia insists the government must take responsibility for fixing traffic by accelerating plans for a mass transit system. And he stretches out a hand to the administration—on this issue, he says, cross-party agreement is possible. 

He links the country’s economic and infrastructural pressures to a tourism strategy he finds contradictory. The government speaks of raising quality, he notes, while accommodating five million tourists a year. 

The PN’s economic direction, Delia explains, is to attract investment in high-value sectors, boosting wages and productivity rather than importing more workers to generate GDP figures. Only through this shift, he argues, can Malta fund social improvements such as better healthcare, education and wages without raising taxes. 

The following is an excerpt of the interview. 

The party said that only a PN in government can recover the money from the hospitals deal. How could this happen? 

I hope the government has not prejudiced this position. I can’t quite tell you how—this [the International Chamber of Commerce tribunal] isn’t a court. 

The agreement between these two colluding parties is like two people agreeing to steal from a bank, and then deciding that if they get caught, they’ll go somewhere private to decide how to split the money after they get caught, without showing what happened. 

Steward, it seems, made a €100 million request based on the famous side agreement, saying, ‘We still want it.’ And the government says it won! 

We ‘won’ because we dropped the contracts, meaning the court dropped the illegal contracts. The government is taking the mickey out of people. That’s why I think we must continue the pressure. 

This is the biggest theft from the people. We now know the government spent €900 million. If this contract was for three concessions, to build and refurbish three hospitals, where are they? 

How would a Nationalist government address traffic? 

The leader of the Nationalist Party offered a good gesture, and I did the same with my counterpart—let’s agree that we have a problem. Let’s realise this will result in gridlock. 

Eight years ago, seven years ago, when Joseph Muscat’s government announced the €700 million road investment, I said that after that investment we’d have a bigger problem, and that’s exactly what happened. 

If we spend another €700 million on roads, we’ll not only have a bigger problem, we will have gridlock. The problem isn’t the roads. If you add 40, 50, 60 cars every day, with a growing population and no good traffic management system, the problem will continue to grow. 

So let’s agree, as government and Opposition, to find the best experts, tell us what the best solutions are, agree on them, start them, and finish them. And the consequences cannot then be used as a political football. 

What is the Nationalist Party’s economic vision? 

An economy that depends on value-added, that attracts capital, not labour. 

Earlier I gave an example: Imagine a 150sq.m plot; it could be part of a factory, property, office. You can set up an office that sells a low-level service, take a small commission, and generate €5,000. But from that same office, if you offer a service or product in sectors that generate more money, you create more wealth. 

If you invest in R&D, creating advanced tech products, and invest in our great youth so that in the same production line you create higher-value products, you get a better return for the economy. 

The PN created these sectors: Aviation, insurance, shipping, reinsurance, pharmaceuticals, gaming. This government continued building on them. 

If we agree on this direction, that’s good, but government must give clear signals that investment needs to go in that direction, and not keep saying that we need to increase the population of our country. 

Alex Borg announced 50 measures in his budget reply. Where is the money going to come from? 

The money will come from the efficient use of what our country produces; the higher wealth created from various investments and the attraction of FDI, and from the removal of waste and theft in various government operations. 

Prudence results in creating more, then collecting more, so you can spend. And if there’s a need to create debt, you do so through capital projects, not recurrent expenditure. 

The finance minister said 80% of companies don’t declare a profit. What does that mean? Is he insinuating these companies are being abusive? That means there is a failure somewhere, maybe in our legislation? Or could it mean they’re in difficulty? Not earning enough? 

How can we say the country is doing well if 80% of our companies are doing badly? The government is contradicting itself. 

If we create new sectors, make good investments, create new wealth and collect efficiently, we will have much more to spend on capital expenditure to improve our country.