[WATCH] Abela sets Monday deadline for OPM to find ‘missing’ Vitals memorandum of understanding

Prime Ministers orders missing document on vitals deal found by today

Prime Minister Robert Abela has said that he has ordered that a memorandum of understanding for the mysterious Vitals Global Healthcare consortium, believed to be ‘missing’, to be found “by today”. 

The document pertaining to the deal reached by the government with Vitals for the transfer of three private hospitals, was claimed to be missing by the former Labour administration when the National Audit Office launched an investigation into the tendering process. 

Abela said that in the report on the deal, the Auditor General said that the government’s memorandum of understanding with vitals global healthcare had not been located. 

“After the report was published, I immediately ordered that the document needed to be found... my position is clear, I have given them a deadline of today to find the missing document,” Abela said. 

MaltaToday understands that the MOU, signed by Malta Enterprise with Vitals’ proponents well before they formally tendered for the hospitals’ concession, could have been inside the Office of the Prime Minister all along. Yet a past freedom of information request for the document from the OPM had never been granted. 

The PM was fielding questions from journalists after a press conference on Monday inaugurating a virtual museum at the Mediterranean Conference Centre.  

Last week a damming report was published by the National Audits Office (NAO) found collusion between Vitals Global Healthcare and the government on the hospital deal. The NAO said that the multi-million euro deal to transfer three state hospitals to an obscure private company was “predetermined.” 

READ MORE: Damning report finds collusion between Vitals and government on hospitals deal 

Previously the government had it assumed responsibility for the report by sacking the former Health Minister Konrad Mizzi. Mizzi was expelled from the Labour parliamentary group in a vote backed by 99% of the party’s executive, after being implicated in a scandal where state utility Enemalta was said to have paid an over-inflated price for a Montenegrin wind farm.  

READ MORE: We sacked Konrad Mizzi – government reply over Vitals ‘collusion’ report