[WATCH] Delia reiterates call for hospitals contract to be stopped

Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat acted as a trade unionist for “foreign crooks” who are demanding more money for the hospital concession, Opposition leader Adrian Delia has said.

The PN leader was speaking during an interview on party radio station NET FM on Saturday morning, where he spoke about the €5 million bonus pocketed by one-time Vitals Global Healthcare CEO Ram Tumuluri.

Diving headlong into a lucrative public-private partnership that gave the unknown VGH a 30-year concession to run three state hospitals, Tumuluri was paid the scandalous bonus in what MaltaToday has learnt was a condition in his contract: €5 million paid out to him on his third anniversary at the helm of VGH.

Delia said that the government handed a contract that was designed to fail, and insisted that the PN will not allow further theft of public funds.

“They wanted it to fail, so individuals could make money off of Maltese families,” he said.

The PN leader insisted that the “government should give the hospitals back to the people”.

The €240 million spent on the hospitals concession, could have been invested in other sectors, with which Maltese families could have benefited a lot more from.

“The Opposition’s stance is clear: hospitals should be managed by the Maltese not foreigners, and health services should be modern and free,” he said.

Speaking about reforms, Delia said that the PN should continue to adapt to an ever-changing society.

“Changes to the party’s statutes should allow for wider representation within a society that continues to change,” he said.

He said that the party was leading the change in ensuring better representation for women in parliament.

Both the Nationalist and the Labour party this week agreed on the gender quota concept, that would be ensuring that women have at least a 40% representation on legislative benches.

The PN leader concluded by stating the Labour Party was largely absent from discussions within the gender quota technical committee.