Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/927417
maltatoday WEDNESDAY 17 JANUARY 2018 News 6 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The newspaper said the gov- ernment would have to fork out €80 million if it opted to buy back the two hospitals at the end of the 30-year conces- sion. However, if this option is not exercised Vitals would get an automatic extension to the concession on both hospitals for another 69 years. By yesterday evening the gov- ernment had failed to deny any of the details reported by the Times of Malta. Never has the 99-year period been mentioned publicly, by ei- ther Vitals or the government and it is impossible to verify the facts with the documents ta- bled in Parliament because key sections are blanked out. In June 2016, when incom- ing Health Minister Chris Fearne lifted the lid on the hospitals agreement with Vi- tals in a media briefing at the company's head office in Ta' Xbiex, it was made clear the concession was for 30 years. This was ref lected in the doc- uments tabled in Parliament four months later. However, many sections of the agree- ment were blanked out with the minister justifying this on the basis that the data was commercially sensitive. The blanked-out data includ- ed all the financial aspects of the deal. The Vitals concession agree- ment, the brainchild of then health minister Konrad Mizzi, was never debated in Parlia- ment. The agreement tabled in the House on 16 October 2016, carried the date, 30 November 2015. It remains unclear wheth- er any changes were made to the agreement in the interim. Parliament is expected to de- bate the Vitals agreement this evening after a request made by the Opposition. The debate was prompted by the news last month that Vitals were selling the concession to Steward Healthcare, an Ameri- can firm. MaltaToday is informed that Vitals was finding it difficult to access bank finance for the project. Vitals have no background in the medical field and had to rope in Partners Healthcare, an American firm, to manage the three hospitals. The private-public partner- ship has been shrouded in secrecy. It was deemed con- troversial because of the part- privatisation of the public health service but crucially be- cause Vitals was not involved in healthcare. The deal would see the com- pany invest €200 million to build a new hospital in Gozo and refurbish the other two. It would also attract medi- cal tourism to the islands and make money by selling beds to the government for use in the public health service. KURT SANSONE THE university licencing body is silent on the troubles facing the American University of Malta despite the onerous con- ditions it had imposed on the institution. Dogged by a low student in- take that forced it to axe all full-time academic staff at the turn of the year, the AUM has had to lower its own expecta- tions by half. The university only attracted 23 students last September, despite having pro- jected an initial intake of 300. It is now targeting a student intake of 150 for the next aca- demic year. AUM hired fewer academics most of whom were on a part-time basis for the spring semester that started in the second week of January. Questions sent to the Na- tional Commission for Further and Higher Education last week have remained unanswered. The NCFHE is the regulatory body that issued AUM with a university licence in September 2016 after the company behind the project, Sadeen Educational Services, accepted a list of strict conditions. These included yearly financial and education- al audits. However, this newspaper only received an acknowledgement that its questions had been for- warded to NCFHE chairperson Godfrey Vella. MaltaToday asked whether the NCFHE had queried AUM's decision to axe all its faculty earlier this month. According to the licence conditions, all academic staff have to be ap- proved by the regulator. This newspaper also asked whether the commission was concerned with the develop- ments at AUM, including the institution's inability to attract enough students. Another question asked whether the commission was performing an audit of AUM's operations to ensure the uni- versity was adhering to its li- cence conditions. It remains unclear whether the AUM's troublesome start has caused it to breach any of the conditions imposed on it by the regulator. Sadeen was granted a 99-year concession to run two universi- ty campuses in Bormla's Dock 1 and Zonqor Point, Marsaskala. The university had to cater for 4,000 students over the long term. However, the Opposition has filed a parliamentary motion asking for the land in Marsas- kala to be returned to the peo- ple, given the project's failure to attract enough students. Prime Minister Joseph Mus- cat and Education Minister Evarist Bartolo have both said the development of land in Marsaskala should not start until the Bormla campus is working at full capacity. Parliament to debate the Vitals agreement this evening Regulator mum on troubles facing American University of Malta TIA RELJIC THERE has been an 85% drop in use of all pedelecs and e- bikes, and bicycle vendors have reported a 90% fall in the sale of e-bikes since the government announced a registration scheme for 250w pedelecs, MaltaToday has learned. "It's time this rather stupid and hastily enacted law is repealed so that we can en- joy the same BEV growth in pedelecs as other EU states and look to effective enforce- ment," Jim Wightman of the Bicycling Advocacy Group (BAG) said. "The group is campaigning to remove the registration of 250W pe- delecs, remove the need for helmets, and calling for "clear targets and milestones for pedelecs and pedelec infra- structure" "There are far more people on bicycles every day and it is time we started making in- frastructure for them that is efficient and safe." While pedelecs and e-bikes are booming in Europe, the trend has not caught on in Malta. The laws pertaining to registration of electric bikes and mandatory use of hel- mets is one reason, Wight- man told us, as these shoot down any chance of e-bikes catching on full speed locally. The group takes no issue with recommending cyclists to wear helmets, he said, but it is far too expensive to sup- ply helmets for everyone for such a scheme. Referring to government e-bike sharing initiatives, Wightman said that he is estimating that it would cost the government €170,000 to provide helmets, excluding shipping and dis- tribution costs, which is not feasible. Safer than normal bicyles Another reason, he said, is the public perception that electric bikes are dangerous since the reality is that pe- delecs might even be safer than normal bicycles in traf- fic, as they allow cyclists to accelerate from traffic. Registration decrease