Adrian Delia claims Steward’s endgame is to cancel hospitals contract to claim €100m penalty

The Nationalist MP Adrian Delia, who as Opposition leader filed a case against the Maltese government as well as Steward Healthcare to request the rescission of the hospitals’ privatisation, thinks Steward’s endgame is to make a bid for the €100 million penalty Konrad Mizzi inked in a 2019 side-letter.

“They know they have a toxic contract... so all they can do to rake in the money is to either insist with the State to pay them more millions to run the hospitals, or take the €100 million penalty,” Delia says.

Delia says that while he submitted documentary evidence that Steward has not upheld the concession’s milestones, the company’s response has been weak at best.

“They did not even send a representative for me to cross-examine, and their photographic evidence of works done at the hospitals did not even come with, say, a hit-list of their accomplishments... since they are not rebutting what I’d describe as robust evidence against them, I ask myself: what are they doing to save their own skin?”

But that endgame also presents a conundrum for the Maltese government, which faces embarrassment over the multi-million payout Steward could get from taxpayers’ money.

READ ALSO: Steward: government will refuse €100 million termination penalty

“Naturally I don’t want the Maltese to have to pay out the liability,” Delia says. “But I think my case is the basis on which to challenge Steward’s expectation that a court decision rescinding the contract would automatically.”

A bullish Delia insists that Steward’s own admission, in a case challenging Vitals Global Healtchare investor Ambrish Gupta’s expectations of a €6 million payout, that the original concession was obtained fraudulently, means the hospitals privatisation contract has to be rescinded.

“If the basis of the concession as it was awarded to Vitals and its secret backers was fraudulent, as Steward is now telling Gupta himself, then any instrument that came thereafter, like Mizzi’s side-letter, cannot be upheld,” Delia says.

That would mean, the MP claims, that a court decision upholding his request would also attack Steward’s claim for its €100 million payout.

But that does not stop Steward from persisting in a court case against the Maltese government to claim damages from the court rescission.

“I don’t think they would win either,” Delia claims. “The very fact that this same company has admitted that the concession was obtained fraudulently, just to counter the pretensions of Gupta, means they cannot be expected to win such a claim.”

Steward Malta told MaltaToday it had no comment to make on the claims by Adrian Delia.

Delia has now extended his campaign with a judicial protest against Prime Minister Robert Abela, as well as Indis Malta, Bank of Valletta, the FIAU and the Commissioner of Police. “If Steward has said the concession is fraudulent, then the PM has to stop the financing of the concession, the police and the FIAU should start investigating the fraud and BOV has to share all it knows of Steward’s transactions with the police,” Delia said.

Steward Malta will be paid €24 million more in 2022, for a total of €69 million, as part of the Maltese government’s obligations to the concessionaire to run the three state hospitals.

READ MORE: The big mystery: If nobody benefits, why did Mizzi forge €100m penalty for Steward?