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PN Says The International Tribunal’s Decision Proves The Hospitals’ Deal Was Fraudulent

PN Says The International Tribunal’s Decision Proves The Hospitals’ Deal Was Fraudulent
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The Nationalist Party has welcomed the decision by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which confirmed that the contract between the Maltese Government and Steward Healthcare should have been terminated.

In a statement, the PN said the international tribunal’s ruling validates what it has maintained from the very start, that the hospitals’ concession deal with Vitals Global Healthcare and later Steward Healthcare was fraudulent.

The ICC recognised that the decisions of the Maltese courts were just, confirming the judgment won by former Opposition and PN Leader Adrian Delia, which annulled all contracts with Vitals and Steward and returned the three hospitals, St Luke’s, Karin Grech, and the Gozo General Hospital, to the Maltese people.

The PN accused the Government of failing to defend the interests of the Maltese and Gozitan people, saying it did not recover any of the money spent on what it described as a fraudulent deal. It noted that while the Government boasted it would recover funds through arbitration, Malta will now have to pay around €5 million more to Steward Healthcare.

PN added that despite neither building nor renovating a single hospital, the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance still failed to recover even a cent. According to the PN, this proves that the Maltese people were robbed under a Labour Government, that the Opposition had to turn to the Maltese courts to get the hospitals back, and that when it came time to present Malta’s case internationally, the Government failed and left the people without a remedy.

The PN insisted that the Maltese people have the right to get their money back, not just empty hospitals with no investment. It said that the Labour Government’s decision to defend the deal until the very end, and its efforts to cover up for Steward, show it lacked the political and moral courage to take strong action against those responsible.

The PN also said that only a new Government led by the Partit Nazzjonalista can ensure full justice over the Vitals and Steward case by recovering the people’s money, holding accountable those who signed and defended the contract, and building a healthcare system that puts patients, not private interests, first.

Calling the Vitals and Steward case the biggest corruption scandal in Malta’s history, the PN said the ICC’s ruling offers yet another confirmation that the Maltese people were right. It added that despite all the promises, Malta still has no new general hospital in Gozo, St Luke’s remains abandoned, and Karin Grech Hospital has yet to be restored.

The statement concluded that the Nationalist Party will continue working so that Malta no longer remains a country where corruption goes unpunished.

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