Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1544603
15 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 APRIL 2026 NEWS a 27-year concession: Does it ring a bell? de Paul for potential bidders is being held on 7 May, during which they may ask for clarifi- cations. The deadline for ten- der submissions is 15 July at 9:30am, with tenders opened at 10am. Model resembles Vitals with safeguards The model being explored for this new hospital resembles that used by the government when it granted three public hospitals—Gozo General, St Luke's and Karin Grech—on concession to Vitals Global Healthcare. That concession stipulat- ed that the private company would fork out the capital ex- penditure to build a new state- of-the-art general hospital in Gozo, and refurbish St Luke's and Karin Grech hospitals in Gwardamanġa. Part of St Luke's had to be used to attract medical tourism, while the gov- ernment would buy beds at the three facilities through which the company would recover its initial expenditure. Vitals was a company with ob- scure shareholding and no pri- or background in the medical field. It had presented letters of credit from an Indian bank, dated before the government had even published the request for proposals, a point that led the National Audit Office to conclude the deal may have been vitiated from the start. The inclusion of provisions in the Sir Temi Zammit tender requesting bank statements from an institution recognised by the MFSA and requiring bidders to show proof they have managed a care facility, appear to respond to the crit- icism linked to the Vitals deal. Qestions sent to the Health Ministry about the model used to finance the new hospital and safeguards to avoid a repeat of the Vitals scandal, remained unanswered by the time of writing. A corrupt deal Nonetheless, the use of a sim- ilar model to finance the new old people's hospital has raised eyebrows in medical circles coming hot on the heels of the Vitals saga. Vitals never delivered and the contract was eventually trans- ferred to the American firm Steward Health Care, which sought to renegotiate contract conditions. A three-part investigation by the National Audit Office had found collusion between the Vitals shareholders and gov- ernment functionaries that suggested the tender process was a done deal. The NAO also found failures by the conces- sionaires to deliver on contrac- tual obligations and noted that certain government officials were more interested in pro- tecting the interests of the pri- vate company than the public purse. The Maltese courts eventual- ly annulled the contract, which was deemed to be fraudulent. The case had been filed by then Opposition leader Adrian De- lia. But the hospitals deal was also the subject of a magisterial in- quiry that eventually led to sev- eral public officials, company directors and third parties to be criminally charged. Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, former minister Konrad Mizzi and the former chief of staff at the Office of the Prime Minis- ter Keith Schembri are facing the harshest charges, involving corruption and money laun- dering. Ex-ministers Edward Scicluna and Chris Fearne were also charged for failing to prevent the corrupt deal from happening. All those charged have plead- ed not guilty and the cases against them are ongoing. Testifying in court recently, Fearne said he had been side- lined from the contractual decisions concerning the hos- pitals concession despite him being health minister. The dealings with Steward were handled exclusively by Mizzi, who in August 2019, even signed a side letter that would enable Steward to re- cover €100 million from the government if the contract was annulled by the courts. This was at a time when the civil court case to annul the con- tract initiated by Delia was still in progress. After the Maltese courts re- scinded the contract, the gov- ernment took back the three hospitals and during interna- tional arbitration proceedings initiated by Steward the gov- ernment attempted to recoup €488 million in payments from the American company for fail- ure to deliver on contractual obligations. At the same time, Steward was seeking to recoup the promised €100 million. The Maltese Government's bid to recover millions failed. The arbitration ruling de- livered by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) found that the Maltese Gov- ernment had failed to chal- lenge any of the invoices Stew- ard had submitted while the concession was in force. Steward also failed to recov- er €100 million, with the ICC ruling that after evaluating the services delivered by Steward and payments made by the government, Malta still owed Steward a balance of €4.8 mil- lion with interest. An artist's impression of how Sir Temi Zammit Hospital will look from a northeast viewpoint on the site