Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1493176
STEWARD'S FATE DECIDED THIS FRIDAY A court is expected to pass judgement on the va- lidity of the government's €60 million deal to pri- vatise the St Luke's, Gozo and Karin Grech hos- pitals. The case was filed in 2018, by Adrian Delia, then Leader of the Opposition, in a bid to force the can- cellation of the 99-year emphyteutical concession agreement on the basis that the concessionaire, Vitals Global Healthcare and their heirs in title, Steward Healthcare, had not fulfilled their con- tractual obligations. Mr. Justice Francesco Depasquale will decide on Delia's request that his court order the €60 million deal be rescinded. Delia had also argued that the contract itself was vitiated because, he claimed, Vitals were in talks with the government before the tender process had even started. The public hospitals' concession had been nego- tiated by Konrad Mizzi, the health minister at the time. Vitals Global Healthcare (VGH), at the time an unknown consortium, had been selected to take over the running of the three hospitals. Delia's case had originally been filed against the Prime Minister, VGH, the Attorney General, the CEO of Malta Industrial Parks, and the chairman of the Lands Authority's board of governors. Steward Healthcare was later grandfathered into the case, replacing VGH as a defendant after the latter sold it the concession, together with €55 mil- lion in debts it had accrued, to Steward Healthcare for the nominal price of €1, less than two years af- ter it had been granted. The court had heard witnesses from various gov- ernment bodies testify to the fact that nobody had carried out due diligence on the contract because it was "already a done deal," decided by former min- ister Chris Cardona and Ram Tumuluri. REPORTING BY MATTHEW AGIUS, NICOLE MEILAK & KARL AZZOPARDI SEE TIMELINE OF THE HOSPITALS CONCESSION SCANDAL - PAGES 8 & 9