Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1494132
THE recent Court decision that ordered the annulment of the Vi- tals/Steward hospitals 'deal' has been the talk of the town for the last week or so. Judge Francesco Depasquale ruled that Vitals and subsequent- ly Steward failed to achieve their completion milestones, includ- ing plans for design, the Barts campus, beds at Karin Grech, the renovation of the Gozo hospital, and St Luke's beds for hospital tourism. He concluded that the breach of the agreement should result in the breach of the entire concession. Incredibly, Steward failed to submit extensive evidence that it had indeed fulfilled its obliga- tions, only presenting a single one-page affidavit by an engineer and several pages of photos. Judge Depasquale also warned that Steward displayed a lack of good faith when – after Adrian Delia had already filed the case – it signed a deal obliging the government to pay Steward €100 million in the eventuality that the contract is scrapped by a court order. The judge ruled fraud was com- mitted during three stages of the process – before the contract was signed, when it was being negoti- ated and when Steward took over. The Prime Minister has shown an incredible lack of courage when reacting to the Court deci- sion. The Government has decid- ed not to appeal against the Court judgement and to meekly accept it. The PM has even said that in the event Steward appeals the Court verdict, he will ask for the case to be heard with urgency. Many have called for the Prime Minister to make a public apolo- gy over the case. This is a correct and justified call. But Robert Abe- la has ignored this. A public apology is certainly due but the Prime Minister is caught in a difficult situation. An apol- ogy would be interpreted as a condemnation of a deal that was made under the stewardship – pun completely incidental – of Joseph Muscat who is still very strong among the Labour grass- roots. Abela must have conclud- ed that it is too early in his po- litical career to confront Muscat directly and has chosen the easy way out: saying he was not even an MP when the concession was granted and accepting the Court decision. This is ridiculous. Abela is the leader of the Labour Pary and should have the courage to apolo- gise to the Maltese people on be- half of the party that he leads. No ifs or buts, please. There is another issue that sticks out in this sordid episode. This is the matter of side-letters that were signed between the two parties, letters that compromise to a large extent the obligations which Vitals/Steward undertook to carry out as part of the con- tract. The former Prime Minister, Jo- seph Muscat, has defended him- self by saying that the deal was approved by his Cabinet. When I was a minister, many moons ago, Cabinet meetings were held on Mondays and I spent all Sunday afternoons and evenings reading the damn Cabinet papers that were to be discussed on Monday. It did not take me long to real- ise that I was one of a very small minority who bothered to read all the Cabinet papers. Other minis- ters would be interested in issues that concern their portfolio and tended to ignore the rest, thus showing great faith in the Prime Minister and his 'aide-de-camp', Richard Cachia Caruana. To be sure, that Cabinet was never be- trayed in the way Muscat's Cabi- net was betrayed on the so-called hospitals private public partner- ship (PPP) deal with Vitals/Stew- ard. That deal was also burdened with a number of side-letters that practically annulled many re- sponsibilities of Vitals/Steward. It does not seem to me that Kon- rad Mizzi used to refer to Cabinet every side-letter that he intended to sign. This was very unfair on his Cabinet colleagues, albeit they must still shoulder the political responsibility for the deal. Side-letters are used when the two sides want to keep some as- pect of an agreement out of the public domain. In my experience, the GWU of- ten asked for some special consid- eration to be made in a side-let- ter so that that some particular concession would not upset the apple-cart where industrial rela- tions are concerned. For exam- ple, it could be an assurance that the employer would not be tak- ing some particular action even though he is not bound to refrain from doing so by the collective agreement. But the side-letters signed in the case of the Vitals/Steward 'deal' had many types of consequenc- es – including financial ones that burdened the Maltese state with more obligations – a situation that the Court found to be verg- ing on fraud. This procedure should not be allowed. The Opposition should imme- diately push through Parliament an amendment to the law so that side letters are clearly illegal when they impinge on the financial ob- ligations of one or both parties in a government contract. This is the least demanded by the tenets of transparency. The government's reaction to such a move will be interesting – to say the least! Controlling rainfaul Controlling rainfall is nothing new. The so-called cloud seeding process involves releasing chem- icals such as silver iodide, potas- sium iodide or calcium chloride into the atmosphere to stimulate cloud formation, enhance pre- cipitation or suppress rain where blue skies are desired. Few people know that China used cloud seeding to ensure dry weather for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, one of the most signif- icant examples of the technique being used on a large scale. Chi- na has also used cloud seeding to stimulate precipitation to help replenish its shrinking Yangtze River. Cloud seeding can theoretical- ly go well, but there is always a chance of unintended adverse consequences. Releasing these chemicals into the atmosphere can contaminate water supplies and affect human and animal health. Researchers at Spain's Com- plutense University – a public re- search university located in Ma- drid – found in a 2016 study that silver iodide causes acute toxicity for a range of living organisms both in soil and freshwater. An- other potential environmental implication of cloud seeding is its potential effect on weather pat- terns. Increased precipitation in one area could lead to droughts in nearby areas, as the rain is di- verted away from those regions. Given all the potential risks, governments should proceed cautiously with any plans to seed clouds. Perhaps with more research and enhancement, hu- mans can perfect the process in the future; but in the meantime, get ready for it to become more and more common despite the risks. 7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 MARCH 2023 OPINION Apologies and side-letters Michael Falzon micfal45@gmail.com Konrad Mizzi has not commented or reacted to the Court sentence on the Vitals/Steward hospitals concession deal