Government insists it won hospitals arbitration; Opposition says Malta lost

The government and the Opposition presented two alternative narratives on the outcome of international arbitration in the Steward hospitals case as they clashed in parliament on Monday.

Government MPs reiterated the official line that the ruling exposed the Opposition’s lie when it claimed Steward Health Care made off with €400 million. On the flip side, Opposition MPs said the ruling proved them right since the government itself had sought to recoup €488 million from Steward in the arbitration proceedings at the International Chamber of Commerce tribunal.

Throughout the special session of parliament, government MPs largely ignored the 200-page ruling as they insisted the Abela administration defended the public interest throughout the arbitration. On the contrary, Opposition MPs quoted chapter and verse from the judgment to back up their arguments as they exposed how the government tried but failed to recover the millions paid to Steward for the concession.

Prime Minister Robert Abela called the ruling a “just” decision, insisting not only did Steward not make off with €400 million but government still had to pay them a further €5 million. He insisted Malta received fair value for the money it had paid Steward.

Abela accused the Opposition of falsity but failed to address the reason why the government unsuccessfully sought to recoup €488 million from Steward at the ICC tribunal.

He also side-stepped completely the findings of the Maltese Appeals Court that there was collusion between government officials and Steward despite the government having used this judgment to bolster its case at the ICC.

The prime minister said the ICC judgment brought a definite close to the 10-year hospitals saga and now was the time to look forward. He promised a masterplan for the three hospitals that were at the centre of the doomed concession—Gozo General Hospital, St Luke’s and Karen Grech.

Meanwhile, Opposition leader Alex Borg pushed back against the government’s narrative, which he described as spin. He said the government took five days to publish the judgment, during which it tried to frame the national agenda on the tribunal’s outcome while everyone else was still in the dark.

Borg accused the prime minister and Justice Minister Jonathan Attard of “believing their own lies” when they offered no plausible explanation as to why the government itself tried to recover €488 million from Steward.

Borg tabled in parliament MaltaToday's detailed report from Sunday on the ICC decision and its editorial, apart from other reports from The Malta Independent and the Times of Malta to support his argument that it was only the prime minister who interpreted the ruling as a victory.

He accused the prime minister and the justice minister of hypocrisy when they tried to blame Nationalist MP Adrian Delia for government’s inability to successfully defend its €488 million claim.

Delia had opened the court case in Malta that eventually led to the rescission of the hospitals contract in 2023.

Borg said the ultimate victim in the hospitals saga, as declared by the arbitration tribunal, was the Maltese public, adding a Nationalist government would invest in new hospitals in Gozo and Malta.

Delia and PN MP Darren Carabott voiced their incredulity at the government’s attempt to blame the Delia case for their failure, insisting the government itself had used the Maltese courts’ judgments to defend its case at the ICC.

Delia also pointed out that the €400 million he had been harping on all along emanated from the reports compiled by the National Audit Office (NAO), which the government had also submitted as documentation in the arbitration proceedings.

Carabott accused government of saying one thing in Malta and another at the ICC tribunal.

Borg’s predecessor, Bernard Grech, said the government had tried to defend Malta “from the monster they created themselves” with reference to collusion between former senior Labour government officials and Steward.

Justice Minister Jonathan Attard, Culture Minister Owen Bonnici and backbenchers Alex Muscat, Michael Farrugia and Ramona Attard for the government accused the Opposition of lying, while blaming Delia and his case for “tying” the government’s hands.

Opposition MPs Joe Giglio and Stephen Spiteri also spoke.