Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1204548
3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 JANUARY 2020 NEWS operate St Luke's, Karin Grech and the Gozo hospitals. The winning company would have to invest €200 million to re- furbish the hospitals and in Gozo's case build a new gen- eral hospital. 27 June 2015 Vitalis Glob- al Healthcare (the name of the group is subsequent- ly changed to Vitals Global Healthcare) is chosen from among three bidders. Mizzi says the concession will be for 30 years and Vitalis will have to invest €200 million. 2 September 2015 The Muscat family announce that the sale of Capua hospital has been called off and the facility will continue to be managed by the Saint James Group. 30 November 2015 The con- cession agreement between the government and Vitals is signed but not published. 22 March 2016 Vitals and Mal- ta Industrial Parks enter into a public deed for the transfer of the hospitals, and Vitals are given sole discretion to extend the lease agreement for a fur- ther 69 years through a simple judicial letter. 21 December 2017 News breaks that Vitals are selling the Malta hospitals concession to American company Steward Healthcare that runs 36 hospi- tals in the US. government to hire the facili- ties and medical care from the concessionaire, costing tax- payers over €2.1 billion over the period. But the National Audit Office is still investigating the hospi- tal project deal. The investiga- tion is expected to confirm the reason why VGH managed to sign a memorandum of under- standing with the government before it actually won the ten- der to run the hospitals. The request for proposals to take over the running of the three hospitals was only published in April 2015, yet VGH was searching for financing on the back of the memorandum well before the publication of the RFP. The tender was officially awarded to VGH the following September. The memorandum, signed in October 2014, was mentioned in a presentation by Vitals which said the government would provide the hospital buildings for 99 years. While officially the lease pe- riod is of 30 years, the govern- ment has denied the existence of a clause in the contract that gives the company the right to extend its emphyteutical grant by a further "single and additional term of sixty-nine years". Steward has, so far, complet- ed the medical school at the Gozo hospital that will serve the Barts medical campus for Queen Mary University Lon- don, as well as an Orthotics and Prosthetics Unit at Karin Grech Hospital. The Maltese government has refused to release sensitive parts of the contract even in the House of Representatives, insisting that the Malta Enter- prise Act lays down confidenti- ality guarantees on such com- mercial contracts. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Abela's first headache A fairground attraction set up for the Christmas season by the Malta Tourism Authority was issuing VAT receipts for its rides with an incorrect VAT number. The Fairyland attraction was organised by the MTA at the Tri- ton Fountain by the Valletta gate, as a Christmas village where rev- ellers could ride a Ferris wheel, Merry-go-round, and skate in a purposely-built ice rink. But the novelty attraction was also operating a ticketing system which carried an inexistent VAT number. According to the receipts issued for the various rides, the imprint- ed VAT number was non-exist- ent, as the Commissioner for In- land Revenue confirmed. In an explanation, the MTA said that the ticketing system used during the Fairyland event was not operated by MTA, but by a third party. "Due to an error which occurred during inputting of the relevant details that MTA had correctly provided to the ticketing opera- tor, the VAT permit number was entered incorrectly, showing one digit as 3 instead of 2. This error was brought to the attention of the ticketing system operator in order to rectify their records and avoid a repeat of such an error in future events. The MTA also contacted the VAT Department on this matter." During the event which took place between 12 December and 5 January 2020, a total of 159,453 tickets were sold. But other in- formation requested on total revenue was not divulged by the MTA on account of commercial sensitivity. Fairyland VAT number inexistent