Government allowing thieving Vitals to sell hospitals to other thieves, Delia says

Delia said government sold hospitals to company with zero experience in health care and brought to Malta a foreign university managed by people with no history in education

The government was giving Vitals Global Healthcare permission to sell the hospitals, after it had paid it €200 million and given it a 30-year lease of land
The government was giving Vitals Global Healthcare permission to sell the hospitals, after it had paid it €200 million and given it a 30-year lease of land

The government had sold Malta’s and Gozo’s hospital, through a 30-year lease, with people who had absolutely no experience in the health care sector, Opposition leader Adrian Delia said today, in reference to the government’s sale of the Gozo, St Luke’s and Karin Grech hospitals to Vitals Global Healthcare 21 months ago.

Speaking at the Nationalist Party club in Rabat, Gozo this morning, Delia said that the government was ruining and stealing all that belonged to the people.

“The government sold the hospitals, but still had to pay €200 million, and over and above this, it gave Vitals the land for 30 years,” he said, “This is worse than corruption - the government gave something to Vitals, and instead of getting paid for it, they had to pay themselves.”

Somebody had now realised at last that Vitals had robbed Malta, but despite this, they decided to have no role in the decision of who Vitals wanted to now sell the hospital too, he said.

“Vitals, the thieves, now want to sell the hospitals to another thieve,” he maintained, as the supporters present applauded, “There is a clause in the contract of sale between the government and Vitals which says that the hospitals cannot be sold until three years from when the investment is complete, but the investment hasn’t even started, and thus Vitals cannot sell the hospitals to another company unless the government gives them its approval to do so.”

“The ’Taghna Lkoll’ government is going to give Vitals the key to enter into our home and steal our most precious possessions. We can now either let this go on without trying to stop it, or we can stand up and not let the government keep stealing from us. The Nationalist Party is not going to shut up - but we will not only use words, because these are not enough to stop what was happening. The people alone can stop the government from stealing from us”.

Turning to the University of Malta, he said that the institution - one of the oldest in Europe - had produced some of the greatest minds in Malta. Yet, the government decided to give one of the best stretches of land in Malta to a foreign university owned by a company which has never managed any type of educational institution in its history, and has no experience in teaching.

Only 14 students had come, despite predictions that the university would have 4,000 people studying there, he said. The business venture didn’t work, and it was apparent that the project was phoney, and just another way the government was abusing of the country.

Speaking about democracy and the rule of law, Delia said that the government had this time not acted like it had in the 1980s, where it used violence to break down the courts and the Curia, but instead, with a smile on its face, had eroded the rule of law from within.

“The surplus which we talk about might be blinding us to what is really happening in Malta. The basis of a normal society is being destroyed in our country,” he told those present, adding that those in government were committing one illegality after another, and should have to pay for their actions.

Addressing the traffic problem, Delia remarked that in the last ten years, the average waiting time to get from one place to the other had increased from 35 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes, and every month the amount of cars on our roads increase by 950.

“In three years time, if the traffic situation continues as is, there will be gridlock on Malta’s streets and it will take two hours to get anywhere”, he said, “And what is the government doing about this? It set apart €700 million in the last budget to resurface all the country’s roads, while the traffic problem will remain completely the same.”

Regarding the teachers issue, he said there are now not enough educators to teach Malta’s children, but, despite this, the government was not doing anything.

“The biggest sectors in the country are tourism and financial services - this government is going to ruin both of these,” he claimed, adding that investor trust in a country was crucial for financial services, something which Nationalist administrations worked for, in that they did its best to make Malta a trustworthy country. This had, in a few years, been destroyed by the Labour government.

“Malta is now no longer credible. The Opposition’s suggestion, to turn this around, it to work together for what is best or the country, and to fix what needs fixing and change what has to be changed. But the government is not interested in doing this,” he said.

“I recently got to know that 60% of jobs in Gozo are with government. The government is pillaging Gozo just as the Barbary corsairs did 1,200 years ago. The Nationalist Party will fight for Gozo’s interests,” he said in his concluding remarks.